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Nissan Motor Company, one of Japan’s largest automotive companies known for its unique and innovative ideas is adding another feather in its cap with an addition to the Rogue series – the 2012 Nissan Rogue.

2012 Nissan Rouge changes

The all new Rogue will make its debut in the market by autumn 2011. This model inherits looks from its predecessor The Rogue 2011 with a little bit of funky look. Unlike 2011 Rogue model this car has unique grille embedded front, center exit exhaust. Nissan has now provided the 2012 Rogue with distinct premium quality material for the interiors to compete with its rivals in the market like Honda CR-V, Ford Escape and Subaru Forester. It would be made available in 3 versions, the basic S, midline SV and the top of line Krom. The basic model will have 16 inch steel wheels, 17 inch for the SV model with 18s as optional and standard 18 inch for the Krom level.

The 2012 Rouge is powered by a 2.5 liter 4 cylinder motor that generates 170 hp and 175 pound feet of torque. CVTs are designed to match with the engine output with high efficiency and fuel economy. Unlike its predecessor 2012 Rogue can pick up speed as fast as any 4 cylinder engine can do. Acceleration does not fizzle out and gives a wide power range. The car performs exceptionally well on rough roads without any hustle. Each 2012 Rogue Version will be standard with front-wheel drive. It places the weight of the engine over the tires to motivate the vehicle to do good on slippery surfaces. This will provide additional grip in messy on-road conditions. Most importantly, the 2012 Rogue is well equipped with a range of standard safety features such as traction control to have a better grip on the road in slippery conditions and an antiskid system, Antilock four-wheel disc brakes and many more. Standard safety features also adds head-protecting curtain side airbags designed to protect from both inside collisions and when sensors detect an approaching rollover.

The 2012 Rogue has a considerable layout of both standard and optional instruments such as tilt wheel steering, cruise control, air conditioning and power windows with locks, heater ducts in the rear, and a manual adjuster for the driver-seat which, will be included in the base price. You can also fit the 2012 Rogue with the options of your choice such as Bluetooth for hands-free mobile connection, leather upholstery, power moon roof, xenon headlamps, rear view camera, and keyless unlocking and ignition. It has an affordable plain vanilla navigation system that should suffice the basic purpose. The 2012 Rogue will come with a large cargo space, a huge glove box, big center-console bins with a washable and removable tray beneath the rear load floor. The cargo-bay organizer pops at the touch of a button and also the front passenger seat can be folded to create an 8.5 feet cargo space.

2012 Nissan Rouge Fuel economy

In today’s scenario fuel efficiency is a major concern for the buyers. The Nissan 2012 Rogue model comes with a 4 cylinder motor with front-wheel drive which helps the vehicle to be more fuel efficient thereby giving a mileage of around 22mpg in city and around 27mpg on highway.

2012 Nissan Rogue pricing

Coming to the price factor of this sleek model, the price of 2012  Nissan Rogue with front wheel drive is expected to weigh around $22000 to $26000 whereas the price for 2012 Nissan Rogue with AWD is expected to be in the range of $23000 to $27000.

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Difference and Comparison between DDR2 and DDR3 memory

Most of the recent notebooks and computers of both AMD and Intel are coming up equipped with DDR2  and DDR3 memories. This FAQ should help you understand the difference in the DDR2 and DDR3  memories.

Q. Can I insert a DDR3 memory module in a motherboard designed for DDR2 memory ?

A. No, you can not insert DDR3 memory module in a motherboard designed for the DDR2 memory. They have different sockets and the pin outs.

Q. What are different speed grades of the DDR2 versus DDR3 memory available.
A. The DDR2 memory is available officially available in the speed range of 400 to 800 Megabits  per second. The DDR3 memory is officially available in the speed range of 800  to 1600 Megabits per second. Speeds higher than 800 Mbps in DDR and higher than 1600 in DDR3 are also available,  but they are not officially supported.

Q. How much is the real improvement in the memory throughput in DDR3 over DDR2

A. This is very good question. The actual throughput measurement involves the motherboard, CPU among other things and it makes the comparison difficult. However, there has not been any significant improvement in the performance between DDR2 and DDR3 even with  the marked increase in the frequency. It is only after DDR3-1333 that you start to see something real in terms of the improvement in the throughput. Various benchmarks have reported 5% to 1% improvements depending upon the memory configuration and the speed grades of the memory you are comparing.

Q. I heard that the Cache Latency of DDR3 memory is higher than that of the DDR2. And that this makes DDR3 memory slower than the DDR2 memory.

A. You are correct in that the Cache Latency of the DDR3 memory is higher than the DDR2 memory. Cache Latency is defined at the time between the issue of the read command from the processor and the time when the data from the memory actually becomes available. It is measures in the units of clock cycles. A higher cache latency in DDR3 means that it becomes slower. However, cache latency is not the only thing determining the overall performance and speed of the DDR3 memory. The higher speed of the DDR3 memory more than makes up the issue of the cache latency.

Q. How about power consumptions ? Which of these two memories consume lower power ?

A. DDR3 memory was designed with power consumption in mind. DDR3 consumes substantially lower power than the DDR2 memory. This especially helps the notebooks that are supposed to work on batteries and the battery life is a concern.

Q. What technological challenge is presented in the architecture and design of the DDR3 memory.

A. Since DDR3 memory works much faster than the DDR2 memory, there are Signal Integrity  challenges to keep the memory part running at much higher frequency. Also the DDR3 memory has been designed to work at lower voltage level. Lower voltage means that a small amount of noise in the power supply rail can lead to error and failure. This is manifested in terms of system hanging. The designers using DDR3 must analyze the platform and the system motherboard to ensure that it stays robust under all conditions of temperature and voltage variations.

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The core i7-720qm is a quad core processor from intel that has recently been used in many gaming notebooks, for example HP Envy 15.

The following faq should help you to familiarize yourself with this processor.

Q. How many cores and threads are there in the Intel core i7-720qm processor.

A. There are 4 cores and with each core containing 2 threads there could be 8 threads running simultaneously. This significantly improves the processor performance in case where several processes are required to run in parallel. This also improves video encoding processes that require parallel execution of several processes.

Q. What is the nominal core frequency of core i7-720qm processor.

A. The Intel core i7-720qm processor  runs at a nominal frequency of 1.6 GHz. This is seeming very low but works very well with the Turbo boost technology.

Q. Is not 1.6 GHz very low ? What is the deal with the Turbo Boost ?

A. Yes 1.6 GHz is seemingly low but it helps preserve battery power, since high processing power in not required all the time. As soon as  high processing power is required the processor automatically boosts it frequency to 2.8 GHz. This is called turbo boost technology and it helps notebooks using the Turbo Boost enabled processors preserve the battery life without sacrificing the processing power when required.

Q. So what is the deal with Cache memory.

A. The core i7-720qm has 6MB of shared L3 cache. It means that all the 4 cores share the common 6 MB cache. An advantage of this scheme is that if a single process needs large cache it can take up the whole 6 MB cache. Had the cache been assigned to invidual cores, a large single process will not fit in.

Q. How about the memory communication ? The memory throughput.

A. The intel core i7-720qm has dual channel DDR3-1066/1333 memory. The integrated memory controller in the core i7-720qm processor significantly increases the throughput rate.

Q. But I heard that core i7 had triple memory channel.

A. You are partially right. I think you are talking about the core i7-9xx processors. They do have triple memory channels that enhances their memory transfer rate. But core i7-720qm has only 2 memory channels.

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At the time of writing the HP Envy 15 review, the details and the configurations were not available. With the launch of the   , some more specific details have started coming out. Here is a quick look at the good, the bad and the quick conclusion.

The good part  : The HP Envy 15-1050NR packs a great deal of power in its slim and small  15 inch size. Its 1080p screen looks great and is backed by HP’s sturdy body.

The bad part: Pretty expensive even for the power it packs. It does lack the internal optical drive. Some blu ray play back issues and display issues with high end Radeon card have been reported by the users.

The quick conclusion : The HP  Envy 15-1050NR posses great  processing power in its slim body. However its high price can deter you from taking buy decision. You like to explore other similarly configured processor at lower cost.

Now some details

Pricing - Looking at the amazon and other places the HP Envy 15-1050NR is priced at $1999.99 – well we should say that it is $2000 notebook ( and that is on July 25, 2010) and that might be enough to deter you from taking a buy it now decision. If your pocket still allows you, go ahead and read more details of this processor.

Processor : The HP Envy 15-1050NR notebook has the i ntel Core i7-720QM Processor at 1.6GHz frequency. It is important to note that even though this notebook nominally works at 1.6 GHz, using the turbo boost feature its core frequency can ramp up to 2.8 GHz. The turbo boost technology allows the processor core frequency to be increased on the fly based upon the demand. The advantage of the turbo boost technology is that it keeps the battery life in control in the notebooks while still giving the processing power when required. The integrated memory controller of the i7 processors means that the memory throughput is substantially increased. The processor has 4 cores and with two threads in each core, there could be 8 Hyperthreads running simultaneously. This significantly increases the performance in case multiple processes are running. The processor has 6 MB of shared L3 cache.

Memory : The 15-1050NR comes with 6 GB of DDR3 System Memory running at 1066MHz. This combined with the Integrated memory controller of the Core i7-720QM gives significant performance boost to the notebook.

Display : The notebook has 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830. The  HP Envy 15-1050NR has  15.6-inch wide-screen LED screen and offers a resolution of  1,920×1,080-pixel or the 1080p HD quality.

Some customers at amazon have reported issue with the display that seems to be coming from the incompatibility with the higher end Radeon card (ATI Mobility Radeon HD5830). This could be a driver or a BIOS issue. If you buy the latest note book you may expect it to be free from the these defects.

The high end graphics card also means the the notebook will be breezing fast should you need any graphic rendering, encoding.

Weight : It is amazing to see that HP has been able to pack the power in the notebook that weighs just 5.4lb ( without the power supply)

External ports : It does come with HDMI, 3 USB 3.0,  Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n,

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The high end GPU card from Nvidia has been very popular among the gaming and graphics enthusiasts. The  GeForce GTX 260M uses Unified shaders to  renders the 3D images. According to Nvidia -”GeForce GTX  260M delivers awesome performance for extreme gamers.This faq should help you familiarize with this  graphics card.

Q. What is the Core CPU frequency and the shader speed of the GeForce GTX 260M .
A. The GeForce GTX 260M has CPU frequency of 550 MHz and shader speed of 1375 MHz.

Q. What is the maximum memory, type and speed in GeForce GTX 260M ?
A. The GeForce GTX 260M has a maximum of 1 GB GDDR3 memory. The memory has 256 bit lane and has speed
of 950 MHz.

Q. What is the power consumption of the GeForce GTX 260M
A. The GeForce GTX 260M consumes 75 Watts of power, which means that it can not be used in small  laptops with inadequate cooling. Typically  the GeForce GTX 260M will be used only in bulky and heavy
notebooks.

Q. Which corresponding Desktop GPU has the same performance level as that of the GeForce GTX 260M
A. The performance of the GeForce 9800 GT (600/1500/900) is roughly the same as that of the  GeForce  GTX 260M.

Q. How does  GeForce GTX 260M compares with respect to 9800M GTX.
A. The GeForce GTX 260M has slight performance advantage as compared to 9800M GTX because of its

higher clock speed.

Q. What are video transcoding capabilitied of GeForce GTX 260M.
A.  Using the CUDA technology from Nvidia GPU’s processor core can be used to perform the  demanding  system tasks – such as video transcoding. This results in significant performance improvements over  traditional CPUs. This is done using the integrated PureVideo HD video processor from  GeForce GTX  260M.

Q. What is HypbridPower Technology ?
A. Hybridpower technology is a technique to save the battery power  in notebooks. When the GPU  switches to lower power moder when the processing power is not required.

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