AMD has posted a net profit of $257 million on $1.57 billion revenue for the first quarter of 2010, and this time it didn't even need that juicy Intel settlement money to get out of the red. It did however saw a one-time, non-cash gain of $325 million related to the deconsolidation of spinoff GlobalFoundries. This was the second quarter in a row in which the chipmaker saw a profit after 12 consecutive losses, also marking a notable improvement over AMD's $416 million net loss in the year-ago period.
Analysts had expected the company to post a loss of 3 cents a share, on revenue of $1.5 billion. In a statement, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer credited new server and graphics chips for boosting their prospects, with the company launching its six-core Istanbul processor as well as seven DirectX 11 graphics cards for desktops and laptops during the quarter.
The executive quoted whopping 88% jump in year-over-year revenue for AMD's graphics chip unit, while its core PC chip business reported a 23% increase during the same period. Both saw sequential revenue drops compared to Q4 2009 due to seasonal patterns. Looking forward, AMD officials declined to give a specific prediction for the second quarter's revenue, saying only it would come in seasonably down.
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Toshiba intros 100GB, 200GB HDDs for cars
Toshiba has unveiled a pair of new 2.5-inch internal hard drives, the 100GB MK1060GSC and 200GB MK2060GSC. Both are destined for use in infotainment applications, such as in motor vehicles, and are touted as the "industry's highest capacity HDD available for automotive applications."
Features include a single-platter, low-powered design with a spindle speed of 4,200RPM, a 12ms seek time, and an operational noise of 23dB. Toshiba's latest products offer 78% quicker internal transfer rates compared its previous series.
They're also seemingly robust, being cleared for use in altitudes between -300 and 5,650m as well as temperatures between -30 and +85C. Additionally, they offer an operating shock resistance of 2,940m/s and a vibration resistance of 50 to 200Hz.
No price was disclosed, but it's mostly irrelevant. While the drives are set for mass production in August of this year, they won't reach consumer availability and will reportedly be limited to OEMs.
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Crysis 2 will be graphically superior on the PC
Crysis was without a doubt the most demanding PC game title upon its release in November 2007, and even today it's still capable of bringing well-equipped systems to their knees. So when news broke that Crytek was planning a cross-platform sequel many were worried the PC version's graphics would be dragged down as a result. However, according to Crytek CEO Cervat Yerli, Crysis 2 will be graphically superior on the PC compared to both PS3 and Xbox 360 editions.
Yerli revealed this to CVG after being asked why the company decided to show the Xbox 360 version of the game at its recent New York showcase, to which he simply responded that people were expecting to see how the game looked on consoles. At the same event, Crytek showed just a glimpse of the PS3 version running alongside the Xbox 360, with both looking exactly the same -- though Yerli himself later said the PS3 version performs "slightly" better at the moment.
Crysis 2 will be the first title to be built on CryEngine 3 when it debuts later this year, and has been hyped as bearing the best graphics in the history of video games. Though it's extremely high hardware requirements were probably one of the reasons the original game didn't sell as well as expected, the game should be much more optimized this time around.
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