Windows 7 RTM arrives for Volume License customers

Windows 7 RTM has been made available to Volume License customers. Windows 7 Professional has been marked down 15 percent for the next six months.

Microsoft today made it possible for businesses to order Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 upgrades from a Microsoft Volume License Reseller. The Volume Licensing (VL) option is for businesses that don't already have Software Assurance and want to upgrade their existing business PCs to Windows 7.

A recent survey found that the majority of businesses were not planning to deploy Windows 7 before the end of 2010, so it's not surprising Microsoft is doing everything in its power to push the new operating system. more

AMD aims to stay in the race with Magny-Cours 12-core CPU

At the recent Hot Chips conference in Palo Alto, AMD outlined its upcoming 12-core server processor, codenamed "Magny-Cours." The new CPU will arrive in 2010, and will fit into the same power envelope as the existing six-core Istanbul processor. But to make that happen, AMD had to make some compromises.

Due in 2010 on AMD's 45nm SOI process, Magny-Cours uses the same basic core microarchitecture as the current Shanghai quad-core server processor, so if there's any improvement in per-thread performance it will have to come from better system design.

The basic idea behind Magny-Cours is simple: take two six-core Istanbul processors, downclock them a bit to reduce power, and squeeze them into a multichip module (MCM) so that they can fit into a single socket. By using an MCM, AMD will be able to fit 12 cores into the same thermal and power envelope as Istanbul.

For system architecture reasons, AMD's MCM picture is a little more complex than was Intel's, because each Istanbul chip has its own on-die dual-channel DDR3 memory controller, along with four HyperTransport links. Obviously, you can't push each chip's full interconnect bandwidth through a single socket, so AMD had to cut out some links.

The company's MCM 2.0 design has four total HT ports (two per chip) and four DDR3 memory ports (two per chip) on each MCM. For each individual chip, one of the links is x16 and another is x8. The two chips are connected inside the module by a x16 HT link.

Even with four HT links and four memory channels to keep the MCM fed, 12 cores is still a lot to pack into a single socket, and bandwidth starvation is a concern. To help alleviate the bandwidth pressure AMD's Istanbul made a very smart tradeoff in the form of HT Assist, and this tradeoff is carried over to Magny-Cours, where it's even more necessary.

One of the big challenges in multiprocessor system design is keeping the various processors' caches in sync with one another; solutions to this problem all involve some amount of communication among the processors, and this "snoop" traffic eats up valuable bus bandwidth. The solution that AMD has adopted with Istanbul and Magny-Cours involves setting aside 1MB of each chip's 6MB cache to store a directory of the contents of the other chips' caches, so that by consulting this local directory each chip can avoid broadcasting a significant number of traffic-increasing snoop requests to the other chips. more

iPhone not exclusive in China, talks with China Mobile go on

The three-year deal Apple made with China Unicom is not an exclusive one, and negotiations continue with China Mobile. Still, regulatory hurdles may prevent Apple from launching a Chinese App Store.

Apple has confirmed that its agreement to sell iPhones via China Unicom, which lasts for three years, isn't exclusive. China Mobile says it is still in talks with Apple to carry the iPhone, though Apple hasn't said what Chinese carriers it is in talks with. And while that company—China's largest mobile carrier by a wide margin—cited control issues with how the App Store is run, there may be further legal hurdles to cross before Apple can offer apps via the App Store to Chinese users. more

Talks of RISC OS Porting to ARM Cortex-A8

"US-based company Genesi, which builds ARM Cortex-powered appliances that could be compatible with the RISC OS Open Beagleboard work, is said to be in talks with RISC OS companies over a possible port of the OS to its products. It's hoped ROS 5 could be made to run on the lightweight EFIKA MX Open Client, which sports a 800MHz Cortex-A8 processor, 3D graphics hardware, 512M RAM, wifi networking and more. Genesi analyst Matt Sealey said: 'RISC OS is really popular in the UK and the last dedicated RISC OS box - the Iyonix - has been discontinued for six months. We are currently questioning the relevant companies in the UK, including [ROS 5 owners] Castle, about collaboration and marketing efforts, and the support they'd need to make it a reality.'" more

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Arrives for Free

Ars writes: "The final release of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (1541.1MB) has been posted on the Microsoft Download Center. This release of Microsoft's standalone virtualization server for small- and mid-sized business customers is a vast improvement over the first version." more

Google Chrome Comes Bundled on Sony Laptops

Google said August 31 that Sony is bundling the Chrome Web browser on its Sony laptop computers, the search engine company's first such bundling deal to help the now one year-old browser reach more users. Sony did not respond to requests for comment but a Google spokesperson confirmed to eWEEK that Sony is bundling Chrome. The spokesperson declined to provide financial details but claimed: "Users' response to Google Chrome has been outstanding, and we're continuing to explore ways to make Chrome accessible to even more people." more

Netbook Market Keeps on Growing

According to Apple, the netbook market is not a market they want to partake in, because they believe the current crop of netbooks is not good enough. Well, good enough or not, netbooks ales are still growing like crazy, according to the latest figures from DisplaySearch. more