"Computer scientists have unveiled a computer chip that turns traditional thinking about mathematical accuracy on its head by fudging calculations.

The Rice University researchers say their “inexact” chip could be useful because it uses dramatically less power than conventional accurate processors.

The scientists claim the prototypes unveiled are 15 times more efficient because they allow occasional errors and could be used in some applications without having a negative effect."

"When AMD first introduced its Brazos platform at the end of last year it promised annual updates to the platform. Today we get the first official update to the platform. Although not a major architectural or process change, the Brazos refresh is significant nonetheless. At the top we've got the AMD E-450, a part we previewed at Computex. The E-450 replaces the E-350 and brings with it higher clock speeds. The two CPU cores see a mild increase from 1.6GHz to 1.65GHz, while the 80-core Radeon HD 6320 GPU creeps up from 492MHz to 508MHz.

"The price cuts will happen in September and October and the full list includes a Core i7-2600S and a bunch of Core i5 that you can see in the table below. Unfortunately, the most noticable price cut is on the Core i7-2600S SKU and it's a mere US $12, from US $306 to US $294. The rest of the price cuts will follow up in October with Core i3-2120 getting a price cut from US $138 to US $117. The Pentium G630 and G850 will get a price cut from US $75 and US $86 to US $64 and US $75."

"IDC has slashed its processor shipment forecast for 2011 due to slow demand in the US and Europe. Global processor sales are expected to grow by 9.3 percent, down from 10.3 percent originally forecasted this year. CPU shipments dropped sequentially by 2.9 percent, while sales were down 4 percent compared to Q1.Year-on-year shipments were a tad stronger, with 0.6 percent growth..."

"The guys from Donanimhaber.com managed to score some slides revealing the performance of the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E processor series, or to be precise, the flaghsip Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. In general, the new Sandy Bridge-E is around 47% faster on average when compared to Intel's current top offer, the Core i7-990X Extreme Edition.."

AMD has announced that they will be supporting the FOSS (GPL) bios Coreboot! This is a huge win for enthusiast builders. This means that those crazy hackers can get down to making custom overclocking or gaming-tuned features.

"Earlier this week AMD quietly introduced new processor pricing lists and consumers can look forward to significantly lower prices, particularly in the mid-range.

Athlon II prices have dropped between 2 and 25 percent depending on the SKU. The popular Athlon II X4 645 dropped from $112 to $102, while the energy efficient 605e dropped from $122 to $98, making it a rather good deal. Dual core Athlons saw cuts between 3 and 12 percent, while triple cores dropped between 5 and 25 percent.

"Intel decided they would as well and recently they launched a speed bump of their flagship Extreme Edition Core i7 processor, known as the Core i7 990X. It's unlocked and clocked at 3.45GHz stock speed with a Turbo Boost top-end speed of 3.73GHz. Intel claims its the fastest desktop chip on the planet; like geek tiger blood for your PC.."