We've known about these drives for quite a while already, but today OCZ officially announced their second generation Vertex and Agility SSDs. Both drives are based on MLC NAND memory chips and use the new SandForce controllers for achieving up to 285MB/s read and 275MB/s write speeds, with sustained writes at an impressive 250MB/s. The differentiator between the two, however, is the all important random write performance.
The Vertex 2 is capable of 50,000 IOPS with 4KB random writes while the Agility 2 offers a much lower but still remarkable 10,000 IOPS. To put this into perspective, Intel's often praised second generation X-25M manages 6,600 IOPS in this same test. Seek times for both OCZ solid-state drive models stay under 0.1ms and power consumption is rated at just 2W in operation or 0.5W in standby.
The Agility 2 and Vertex 2 series will ship in 50GB, 100GB, 200GB and 400GB varieties in a few weeks with a SATA 3Gbps interface, TRIM support and a three-year warranty. Prices have not been disclosed at the time of writing.
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Nvidia readying cut-down GeForce GTX 460 for June launch?
According to Chinese tech blog Expreview.com, citing "reliable sources", Nvidia is preparing a lower-end addition to its GeForce GTX 400 lineup that could come as soon as June 1 -- just in time for Computex. The third Fermi-based offering will reportedly bear the GeForce GTX 460 name and should go against AMD's Radeon HD 5850 in terms of price and performance.
It is said to utilize the same PCB as the GeForce GTX 470, but featuring 1GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 256-bit bus and presumably cuts specs across the board. By comparison, the GTX 470 has 1,280MB of GDDR5 RAM and a 320-bit memory interface. Interestingly, Expreview claims there will be no formal reference design for the GTX 460, with each partner free to make a slightly different version.
Previous rumors suggest that other cheaper Fermi derivatives based on new silicon could arrive around June as well. These include a GeForce GTS 450, 440, and 430 -- all of them based on the 40nm GF104 core and priced under $200.
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Silverlight 4.0 to be released this month
While Adobe has been getting most of the press recently for their Flash 10.1 RC, Microsoft has quietly announced their plans to release the final version of Silverlight 4.0 as early as next week. This major update will provide more fundamental changes than prior iterations, including Google Chrome support, better performance (up to 200% over Silverlight 3), improved security with digital signing and sandboxing, and greater control for developers.
Silverlight will also be the primary development environment for Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series platform -- the full programming model, not a mobile version -- so those interested in writing apps for these devices may want to tune in to see what's coming. The company is offering a Windows Phone 7 development toolkit for free, including Silverlight, Expression Blend for Windows Phone and a preview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express.
The release candidate of Silverlight 4 has been available for download since mid-March 2010, with Microsoft releasing the preview code at the MIX10 conference in Las Vegas.
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