With the release on Intel’s latest generation of processors, codenamed Ivy Bridge, comes Quick Sync Video 2.0. This is an enhancement to Intel’s original Quick Sync Video technology which provides hardware encoding and decoding of video directly on the processor. All second-generation Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks feature Quick Sync 2.0 which is up to twice as fast as Quick Sync found in first-generation Sandy Bridge Ultrabooks. In order to take advantage of Quick Sync 2.0 you need to be using software that is designed to use it; a number of companies have announce support for the technology.

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It’s not going to be possible to get a full review of the ASUS UX31 together as unfortunately I’ll be returning it tomorrow to exchange it for a Toshiba Z830 and settling on that for my work at CES, Mobile World Congress and probably CeBIT in March. It has been a tough decision but it’s time to bite the bullet and get to work. Before I do thought, let me tell you what I have learnt about the UX31 in the last 4 days.

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The MSI Windpad 120W is the Cedar Trail version of the Windpad U110W – an AMD Fusion device.  We reported on the 120W in June where it showed at IFA with a Cedar Trail 1.86Ghz CPU. We saw it at IDF a few weeks ago and it had a low-power platform inside. We had the chance to give it a few tests.

The Windpad 120W shown at IDF used the Intel Atom N2600 with 32nm CedarView-M with dual-core, 2-threads per core (contrary to specs) and 1.6Ghz clockrate. The PowerVR SGX545 graphics operates at 400Mhz and forms part of the GMA graphics unit. The TDP is 3.5W and it is coupled with a communications chip (NM10) that uses 1.5W.

We only had time to do some CPU and battery tests but in Cinebench R10 we get a good idea of the CPU performance. A multi-core result of 1507 matches Atom N550 and very closely.

The 120W comes with 2GB of RAM

And after a good 10-15 minutes of testing, we saw over 4hrs left on the battery (97%) which is an indicator of working time. Given the low TDP of the Cedar Trail platform we expect it to idle down well to add a few hours to that.

One thing we still haven’t worked out is the screen resolution although the 110W has 1280×800. If that’s the case, this could make the perfect entry-level Windows 8 tablet.

Still outstanding from Cedar Trail tests are definitive 3D graphics performance tests. We’ve seen an indication that the N2800 with the graphics clocked at 650Mhz will be twice as good as the graphics on the Pine Trail generation but remember, the N2600 graphics are clocked lower. Don’t expect anything ground-breaking here.

As someone that is looking for a comfortable and mobile 720p video editing solution, the Intel Quick-Sync Video component is one of the most exciting for me. It contains both decode and encoding hardware that can really help when converting or rendering a video. Although the demo you see below was done on a Samsung Series 9, it’s using the same 2nd-Generation Core platfom as Ultrabooks will.

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Watch reports on the Samsung Series 7 Slate PC very carefully if you’re interested in Ultrabook performance because as mentioned before, it’s a Ultrabook without the keyboard. OK, it might not have a few of the Ultrabook features like Anti-Theft and WiDi but the processing platform is the same.

I had some hands-on with the Samsung Series 7 Slate PC at IFA last week and was impressed to see it blow through 100K in a CrystalMark test. That puts it at about 5X the score that a netbook would get and about 50% of the speed of the quad-core Intel Core 2 Q6600 2.4Ghz desktop I’m using right now. In summary, a very usable amount of processing, disk and memory speed that is unlikely to keep you waiting….and all in a platform that runs between about 6 and 25W of power usage. Amazing!

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Here’s a quick look at the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS facing off head to head. I didn’t cover too much stuff in this video, so if there are more comparisons that you’d like to see, speak up in the comments, and do it soon; the iPhone 3GS is going away (far away) very soon.

In a report from Morgan Stanley we find out that Intel have launched the Moorestown platform today.

Update: Information is obviously under embargo at this stage but there are a string of tweets that have just gone through that mention Moorestown and a Z6xx processor. e.g. this one. “Intel Z6xx smart-phone processor prototypes: Moorestown massacre: Intel says that fantasy phone is on its way, wit…” They all link to a Cnet UK article that has obviously been removed. The current Menlow platform uses Z5xx processors. This makes sense.

Update 2: Everything is official now. The Z6xx has been launched. Interesting news on Android too.

Morgan Stanley have studied Moorestown and believe that Intel is ‘well positioned with MeeGo’ and that video performance will compare with the latest smartphone platforms, including Tegra 2. They also think that Moorestown will ‘meet or exceed’ current smartphone performance. It’s a bright report that will definitely give the ARM ecosystem partners something to think about.

At its Moorestown launch on May 4, we expect
Intel to introduce and advocate multiple benchmarks to
measure and compare highly debated performance and
power consumption attributes of Smartphone
application processors. In this report, we present
several comparison frameworks, which we plan to
update after actual Moorestown data become available.
Our view is that with Moorestown, Intel will finally start to
meet the power budget for Smartphones, but will show
more favorably on processing power benchmarks.

See also: UMPCPortal Moorestown analysis here.

The financial report also states:

Our checks indicate that Intel and Nokia are also collaborating on a
Smartphone device, which we think is likely to become available in the market in
mid-to-late 2011.

Considering that this report is focusing purely on Intel’s smartphone processor and this statement appears in a section on MeeGo, the report implies that the Nokia phone will be based on Intel’s Moorestown platform and running MeeGo.

The Morgan Stanley report was published on May 3rd and has been promoted by Intel in its ‘Chip Shot’ blog. The full PDF, an interesting read if you’re comparing smartphone platforms, is available as a download here. (or via the Chip Shot blog linked above.)

Stand-by for official Moorestown launch info!

Maybe I should have posted this article at Carrypad rather than UMPCPortal as it pertains to the progress that ARM-based devices have made in terms of browsing speed. Just two years ago I wouldn’t have given an ARM-based system a second look if I was thinking of doing an web-based work but now they are challenging low-end PC’s and enabling the sort of devices we cover here on Carrypad. So far, Intel haven’t quite reached down into this area of click consumer computing devices yet.

The question does remain though – What advantage would a 5″ or 7″ device bring over something like the Motorola Droid? Personally I want a 5″ device for an even better quality browsing experience, ebook reading, navigation, 1 meter video experience and a huge battery. It WILL be a second device but that’s fine by me be cause it means I don’t have to have a very expensive high-end smartphone as a 24/7 device.

Smartphones Break the 10-second Barrier. | UMPCPortal – Ultra Mobile Personal Computing.