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Monday, June 30th 2008
Diamond HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5 Review
AMD's new Radeon HD 4870 is the first graphics card to feature GDDR5 memory. GDDR5 offers twice the memory bandwidth over previous GDDR generations which helps the HD 4870 gain a nice performance advantage over the HD 4850.
ATI Radeon HD 4850 Fan Speed Workaround Posted
If you own one of the latest ATI Radeon HD 4850 cards and you're not satisfied with the reference single slot cooling and more specially with the temps you're getting in both idle and load, here's a quick workaround which might help you until better solution is available. A Guru3D forum member has found that if you make a profile in catalyst after turning on Overdrive, you can then edit it and manually change the fan speed. All steps to make it work are written here. Here's also a direct link to the full Guru3D thread. I'm not exactly sure, but this workaround should also work with ATI Radeon HD 4870 cards.
Scythe Releases Kama Panel 2 5.25-inch Multi-Functional Controller
Scythe has now introduced Kama Panel 2 - a new 5.25-inch multi-functional controller for PCs. Available in black (SCKMPN-2000-BK) and white (SCKMPN-2000-SL) the Kama Panel 2 measures 148 x 42 x 90mm (WxHxD) and features an integrated memory card reader, six fan controlling knobs (4 of them are detachable), two USB 2.0 ports, one Line-In jack, a Mic-Out jack, an Audio-Out jack, an IEEE1394 plus one data and one power SATA connectors. The integrated memory card reader is compatible with all SD Card, miniSD Card, SDHC Card, Micro SD Card, MMC Card, RS-MMC Card, Compact Flash, Micro Drive, xD Card and Memory Stick PRO, DUO and PRO-DUO cards. Also if the four detachable fan knobs are removed you can place a slim CD/DVD drive in their place. The suggested retail price for Scythe Kama Panel 2 is $39.80 or 24.95 Euro without VAT.
ViewSonic Presents its New VA2626wm 26-inch LCD Monitor
ViewSonic Corp. introduces the latest addition to its complete range of LCDs with the affordable, feature-rich VA2626wm LCD monitor. At less than $530, the 1080p Full HD panel offers a large workspace for the productive multi-tasker and the ultimate viewing experience for movie buffs and gamers. Multiple inputs, like HDMI, VGA and DVI with HDCP compatibility, allow Blu-Ray" disc player, cable box, satellite box, or gaming console connections, and quickly take users from work to play.
Radeon HD4870 X2 Readies for Release
Following the recent launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 GPUs, AMD plans to introduce the high-end dual-GPU HD 4870 X2 by the end of July, according to sources at graphics card vendors. Evaluation samples are schedule to be available in mid-July, and AMD will begin shipping reference design boards with 1GB* GDDR5 memory at the end of the month, the sources detailed. In mid-August, AMD will also begin shipping the 4870 X2 (RV770XT) GPU to partners wishing to design custom cards, the sources added. HD 4870 X2 graphics cards are expected to be priced around US$499, the sources detailed.*unconfirmed reports suggest this card to feature a total of 2GB GDDR5 memory
Two R700s Churn-out X12515 in 3DMark Vantage
AMD, Austin have managed a benchmark score of X12515 in the 3DMark Vantage benchmark using two Radeon HD4870 X2 cards in CrossfireX, a feat that takes three GeForce GTX 280 cards in 3-way SLI to achieve. The R700 boards were clocked at 778 MHz core, while the GDDR5 memory was clocked at 980 MHz QDR (effectively 3.92 GHz). This brings the total on-board video bandwidth to a stellar 250.8 GBps.
With inputs from TG Daily
New ASUS Eee PC Variants to Feature Bigger Keyboards
ASUS is planning to launch two new Eee PC variants, the 904 and 905, which have an 8.9-inch display panel but use a similar chassis and keyboard as the company's 10.2-inch models, according to sources at channel vendors.
The Eee PC 904 and 905 will incorporate Intel Atom processors and the major difference between the two and the previous 901 model is that they feature a bigger keyboard. ASUS is still evaluating whether to make changes to the two variants' battery and storage capacity.
ASUS expects the Eee PC 904 and 905 to come out at a similar price band as the current 900 and 901, and will eventually replace them. The company also considers whether to drop prices for the 900 and 901 to flush its inventory or leave them in the market to defend against Acer's Aspire One, noted the sources.
The Eee PC 904 and 905 will incorporate Intel Atom processors and the major difference between the two and the previous 901 model is that they feature a bigger keyboard. ASUS is still evaluating whether to make changes to the two variants' battery and storage capacity.
ASUS expects the Eee PC 904 and 905 to come out at a similar price band as the current 900 and 901, and will eventually replace them. The company also considers whether to drop prices for the 900 and 901 to flush its inventory or leave them in the market to defend against Acer's Aspire One, noted the sources.
Sunday, June 29th 2008
Topower Intros PowerBird 900W & 1100W Fully Modularized PSUs
Topower Computer, an well recognized industry leader in enthusiastic and high reliability power supply, today unveiled the PowerBird power supply series for high caliber performance gaming systems. The PowerBird designed to offer the enthusiastic market an award wining computer power supply with cutting edge designs, the PowerBird is the power supply solution for those users that require a premium efficient and high stability solution for their leading gaming system.
Seagate Still Sourcing NAND Flash
With announcements coming in from of rolling out Solid State Drives (SSD) and that it would become a prominent player in the SSD business, Seagate is still in requirement of trade relationships with a NAND Flash manufacturer, add to that it doesn't have production facilities of its own.
This has gotten analysts to speculate on where Seagate will source its chips from, a possibility being buying Intel's share of the Intel-Micron JV. Such a buy-out would set Seagate back by close to $1 bn. Another possibility would be to acquire SanDisk or Hynix (Hyundai) which focus on making entry-level solid state drives, but are a major players in the overall NAND flash market. If it will be SanDisk, Hynix or any other flash maker remains to be seen, but it wouldn't come as a surprise if Seagate announces the acquisition of a flash company soon.
This has gotten analysts to speculate on where Seagate will source its chips from, a possibility being buying Intel's share of the Intel-Micron JV. Such a buy-out would set Seagate back by close to $1 bn. Another possibility would be to acquire SanDisk or Hynix (Hyundai) which focus on making entry-level solid state drives, but are a major players in the overall NAND flash market. If it will be SanDisk, Hynix or any other flash maker remains to be seen, but it wouldn't come as a surprise if Seagate announces the acquisition of a flash company soon.
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 1GB GDDR5 Nude Shots
I spotted some new nude shots of the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card today and decided to share them with you. Little is known about the card's specs at the time, but what's apparent from the pics is the black PCB, the two 55nm-built RV770 GPUs and the PLX PCI-Express 2.0 bridge chip situated between the GPUs. On both sides of the PCB there are 16 Qimonda GDDR5 chips for a total of 1GB video memory. Also one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI-E connectors will be needed for proper operation.
Diamond Releases Radeon HD 4870 XOC Unlocked Black Edition
Diamond Multimedia (www.diamondmm.com), a leading manufacturer of PC graphics cards, sound cards and communications products, launched today along with boutique system builder Smoothcreations, and Water cooling mavens, Danger Den the ATI Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition graphics card. This card offers exquisite gaming capabilities combined with state of the art efficiency.
The HD 4870 is a smoking gun dual slot card, PCIE 2.0, with 512MB of DDR5 memory and a clock speed of 800 MHz. The memory speed is 1100 MHz and is designed with 800 stream processors. The HD 4870 provides plug-and-play ATI CrossFireX upgradeability with up to quad-GPU support. Continuing with ATI's Power Play and 55nm processing technology, this card is the fastest and efficient. "The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition was clocked to kick some ass". We didn't just want a fast card out in the market, we wanted the fastest card that could kick the living daylights and bust some performance records, say Mario Gastelum, Director of Product Development & Engineering. "we wanted a card that kicked the competitions teeth into the curb", and that's exactly what our engineers accomplished". "The firmware was custom designed to enable end users to go beyond the normal over clocked speeds and allow them to push their cards for higher performance via the catalyst control center." The GPU's custom firmware has been unlocked to push cards to GPU settings of up to 950 MHz and Memory of up 1200 MHz.
Update: Diamond has decided to make "these cards available in ecommerce in the next few days".
The HD 4870 is a smoking gun dual slot card, PCIE 2.0, with 512MB of DDR5 memory and a clock speed of 800 MHz. The memory speed is 1100 MHz and is designed with 800 stream processors. The HD 4870 provides plug-and-play ATI CrossFireX upgradeability with up to quad-GPU support. Continuing with ATI's Power Play and 55nm processing technology, this card is the fastest and efficient. "The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition was clocked to kick some ass". We didn't just want a fast card out in the market, we wanted the fastest card that could kick the living daylights and bust some performance records, say Mario Gastelum, Director of Product Development & Engineering. "we wanted a card that kicked the competitions teeth into the curb", and that's exactly what our engineers accomplished". "The firmware was custom designed to enable end users to go beyond the normal over clocked speeds and allow them to push their cards for higher performance via the catalyst control center." The GPU's custom firmware has been unlocked to push cards to GPU settings of up to 950 MHz and Memory of up 1200 MHz.
Update: Diamond has decided to make "these cards available in ecommerce in the next few days".
Cooler Master Unveils its UCP Series Power Supplies
With the level of competition in the computer hardware industry reaching new highs by the day, manufacturers are looking for innovative ways to market their products. With "Stability, Durability" being the new mantra and players such as Gigabyte and ASUS already using these as USP for some of their flagship products, Cooler Master jumps in with their Ultimate Circuit Protection (UCP) line of power supply units.
They have launched three models, a 700W (RS-700-AAAA-A3), a 900W (RS-900-AAAA-A3) and an 1100W (RS-B00-AAAA-A3). These PSU's are unique for having conductive-polymer (solid-state) capacitors in the most temperature sensitive parts of the PSU, supplemented with Japanese electrolytic capacitors. A surge-protective soft start circuit is also included.
They have launched three models, a 700W (RS-700-AAAA-A3), a 900W (RS-900-AAAA-A3) and an 1100W (RS-B00-AAAA-A3). These PSU's are unique for having conductive-polymer (solid-state) capacitors in the most temperature sensitive parts of the PSU, supplemented with Japanese electrolytic capacitors. A surge-protective soft start circuit is also included.
Akasa Introduces Power Extreme 1200W PSU
Akasa Introduces Power Xtreme 1200W PSU
Akasa adds its entry to the range of heavy-duty power-supplies with its PowerXtreme 1200W (model: AK-P120FG-BK). This 150x160x86 mm PSU features six independent +12V rails and a rated efficiency of 80 per cent. Apart from the usual plethora of connectors PSUs of this range are expected to have, it features two 8-pin auxiliary power connectors for multi-CPU socket desktop and workstation boards. It features a total of nine 6-pin PCI-E power connectors with six of them capable of doing 8-pin with a side 2-pin expansion that's detachable. Akasa provides a cable-management kit in the package, no modularity was advertised. The power distribution diagram is provided below. The PSU is priced at £189.95 or €240 (excl. VAT).
Akasa adds its entry to the range of heavy-duty power-supplies with its PowerXtreme 1200W (model: AK-P120FG-BK). This 150x160x86 mm PSU features six independent +12V rails and a rated efficiency of 80 per cent. Apart from the usual plethora of connectors PSUs of this range are expected to have, it features two 8-pin auxiliary power connectors for multi-CPU socket desktop and workstation boards. It features a total of nine 6-pin PCI-E power connectors with six of them capable of doing 8-pin with a side 2-pin expansion that's detachable. Akasa provides a cable-management kit in the package, no modularity was advertised. The power distribution diagram is provided below. The PSU is priced at £189.95 or €240 (excl. VAT).
ASUS Launches New Matrix Series Graphics Cards with ASUS ROG EN9600GT MATRIX/HTDI/512
ASUS, a company that already sells more than enough custom video cards is now introducing its new MATRIX branded ROG (Republic of Gamers) EN9600GT HTDI/512M. I'll skip the mile long press release pointing out at this card as being the world's most intelligent, and write out some of its main advantages that might convince you of buying it. Dressed in black, the GeForce 9600GT MATRIX is equipped with the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine for automatic detection and adjustments of voltage, clock settings and GPU fan speed. With its help the card lowers its GPU voltage in 2D mode and stops the GPU fan for completely silent operation. When required, the fan will start to spin depending on the GPU load and temperature. Futhermore, the EN9600GT MATRIX comes with iTracker, a feature that provides four different mode profiles: Optimized Mode, Gaming Mode, Power Saving Mode, and Default mode. It also displays in real-time the GPU/shader/memory clock speeds, GPU/memory voltages, GPU loading, GPU/memory/power IC/ambient temperatures, and the GPU fan speed. Finally, the card's remaining characteristics: 650MHz/1625MHz/1.8GHz (900MHz DDR3) core, shader and memory clock speeds respectively. Click here to see the full press release.
Saturday, June 28th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
Yuin PK1 Ear Buds Review
Yuin's PK1 earbuds were all the rage when they first hit the market quite a while ago. Since then Yuin has further upped the stakes by introducing the new and improved OK-series earphones. Today we take a look at the PK1s to see if the former earbud champion can still compete in today's market.
DRAM Prices Plummet, Micron Technology Posts Record Loss
With many economies under inflation and other factors influencing a weak demand, these are perhaps the worst days for several companies involved in manufacture, marketing and distribution of DRAM and related products. While on the surface, all the consumer can see is a falling market price, in reality it is a composed chaos.
DigiTimes reports a falling demand for DRAM in the Asia-Pacific region as the Chinese government cracks down on users of contraband DRAM products brought in from manufacturing states. The government crackdown began with the thousands of internet-shacks and the components (both hardware and software) they used. All this comes ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a 'purge drive'. As a result, thousands of internet-shacks have been closed, bans have been imposed on the use of contraband hardware, most of which consist of DRAM related hardware. China also brought about changes in their customs routines and procedures making it extremely complicated for importers, stepping up waiting queues, affecting markets and more importantly, dampening demand.
DigiTimes reports a falling demand for DRAM in the Asia-Pacific region as the Chinese government cracks down on users of contraband DRAM products brought in from manufacturing states. The government crackdown began with the thousands of internet-shacks and the components (both hardware and software) they used. All this comes ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a 'purge drive'. As a result, thousands of internet-shacks have been closed, bans have been imposed on the use of contraband hardware, most of which consist of DRAM related hardware. China also brought about changes in their customs routines and procedures making it extremely complicated for importers, stepping up waiting queues, affecting markets and more importantly, dampening demand.
Intel Skips Windows Vista
Now that Microsoft officially confirmed support for Windows XP until year 2014, Intel has decided to skip upgrading to Windows Vista. The chip giant won't upgrade the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft's Vista operating system, according to a person close to Intel's IT department. "This isn't a matter of dissing Microsoft, but Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista," the person said. There's no official reason for this decision, but it's quite obvious that Vista is still not mature enough to succeed Windows XP. Sad but true. Meanwhile, the next version of Windows codenamed Windows 7 is scheduled to go on sale in January 2010. By skipping Vista, Intel dooms its workers to Windows XP for at least two more years.
VIA Pico-ITX Goes Low Profile, Integrates Power Supply
VIA Technologies, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA P700 Pico-ITX board that couples more features within a streamlined, ultra compact footprint designed for low profile systems, with extended I/O port options through two companion boards.
Cooler Master Launches the V8 CPU Cooler
Cooler Master first showcased its new V8 and V10 processor coolers during this year's CES show. Now some time after, the firm is formally launching the V8 in public. The V8 Cooler includes some very rich features. For instance it can efficiently dessipate up to 180W thanks to its copper base, modularized 4 part design and 8 diagonal up-rise situated heat pipes. For optimal performance, V8 also comes with a center mounted 120x120x25mm speed controlled fan which blows cool air through the cooler's aluminium fins. The V8's dimensions are 120 x 120 x 158mm. It weighs in at 865g and supports Intel's LGA 775 Socket, and AMD's Socket 940/AM2/AM2+. The cooler should be available now through Cooler Master's distributors. Find more details here.
Blizzard Presents Diablo III
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today revealed Diablo III, the newest entry in its critically acclaimed action role-playing-game franchise. The announcement was made during the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational at the Porte de Versailles Convention Centre in Paris, France. A cinematic trailer and an extended gameplay demonstration with commentary from the development team introduced the game to the thousands of players in attendance.
"We've wanted to expand on the epic story and gameplay elements of the Diablo universe for some time now," stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We know that players have also been long awaiting a return to the series, so we're very excited to be sharing this announcement with Blizzard gamers here in Paris and around the world today."
"We've wanted to expand on the epic story and gameplay elements of the Diablo universe for some time now," stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We know that players have also been long awaiting a return to the series, so we're very excited to be sharing this announcement with Blizzard gamers here in Paris and around the world today."
Details of the First Fusion Derivative Called 'Shrike' Surface
AMD Fusion, the latest buzzword in the industry, simply put is a complex chip called Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), with a dual-core CPU, graphics processor, a PCI-Express switch and a DDR3 memory controller all rolled into one. This level of integration helps reduce system-level latencies, thereby improving performance and more importantly, reducing overall power-consumption and heat output, bringing it into the ultra-low power niche. AMD claims performance increments scaling up to 20 per cent for the CPU and up to 35 per cent for the GPU. Its compact package allows manufacturers to use it in building less than 1 inch thick notebooks.
The platform codenamed 'Shrike' is the first implementation of this design methodology. This industry schematic shows the various components of it. Shrike is slated for a H2, 2009 release. While it's not aimed to compete directly with the Intel Centrino Atom or VIA Isiah, it could just become a competitive platform for portable computing. Shrike consists of an APU codenamed "Swift" that connects to an external southbridge chip.
The platform codenamed 'Shrike' is the first implementation of this design methodology. This industry schematic shows the various components of it. Shrike is slated for a H2, 2009 release. While it's not aimed to compete directly with the Intel Centrino Atom or VIA Isiah, it could just become a competitive platform for portable computing. Shrike consists of an APU codenamed "Swift" that connects to an external southbridge chip.
Gainward to Become a Neutral Board Partner
Traditionally a board partner with NVIDIA, Gainward, a subsidiary of Palit, decides to become a neutral board vendor selling graphics cards featuring GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD/ATI.
They have slated versions of the Radeon HD4800 series for release soon. These cards will feature the usual Gainward-exclusive features such as the EXPERTool, to monitor the GPU temperature and fan speed of the GPU, In addition, possible changes fan speed, frequency kernel GPU, memory and Shader unit.
Would other NVIDIA board partners follow suit? Only time will tell.
They have slated versions of the Radeon HD4800 series for release soon. These cards will feature the usual Gainward-exclusive features such as the EXPERTool, to monitor the GPU temperature and fan speed of the GPU, In addition, possible changes fan speed, frequency kernel GPU, memory and Shader unit.
Would other NVIDIA board partners follow suit? Only time will tell.
NVIDIA in a Rush for 55nm Parts, has Partners 'Red-Eyed'
With the cost of manufacture for a standard G200 die reaching up to US $110, thanks to yields as low as 40 per cent, NVIDIA seems to be in a rush for a 55nm revamp of its current GPUs. While nothing revolutionary is on the cards, and with 55nm G92b already in the making, NVIDIA plans to revamp its G200 graphics processors to the 55nm fab process, increasing yields up to 50 per cent. At 55nm, the G200 die will be effectively reduced to 470 sq. mm, implies 120 dice on a 300mm wafer.
The pace at which things are moving is having the partners red-eyed. NVIDIA's new Unilateral Minimum Advertised Price Policy (UMAP) has limited partners' playing field and minimizes competition between them. When NVIDIA at the same time decides to launch new cards based on existing cores, at lower prices, partners get upset over diminishing earnings. Add to that AMD's new RV770 chip is looking very tempting to some of these partners.
The pace at which things are moving is having the partners red-eyed. NVIDIA's new Unilateral Minimum Advertised Price Policy (UMAP) has limited partners' playing field and minimizes competition between them. When NVIDIA at the same time decides to launch new cards based on existing cores, at lower prices, partners get upset over diminishing earnings. Add to that AMD's new RV770 chip is looking very tempting to some of these partners.
Friday, June 27th 2008
Today's Reviews
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
ATI Releases Optimized Linux Drivers for ATI FireGL Graphics Cards
ATI has released new Catalyst drivers for all Linux OS users, that bring major performance enhancements to ATI FireGL professional graphics cards. The enhanced 8.49.7 Linux driver represents a significant leap for Linux customers seeking improved performance of CAD and digital content creation applications, offering up to 33% faster OpenGL performance than the previous 8.433.1 driver. If you need them, you can grab them here at any time.
New Crysis Warhead Details Emerge
Some early details about Crytek's Crysis Warhead game have been revealed today by the PC Gamer magazine. Here are all the new key points at a glance:
- Begins when the original game's Nomad character parts ways with Warhead's new hero, Psycho, and follows him all the way until the two are to reunite again on board the aircraft carrier.
- Mostly located on the other side of the island.
- Less linear approach and more sandbox type of gameplay, as opposed to the original.
- Same nanosuit and the same functions, with more likely to be revealed later (definitely a "surprise" in that matter is promised).
- Singleplayer campaign to last 8-10 hours.
- At least two new weapons, the granade launcher and double SMG.
- Improved enemy AI, betterily able to organize itself and follow tactics.
- New vehicles incl. Armored Scout Recon (about the size of a jeep with a mounted gun) and a hovercraft, both playable in multiplayer as well.
- New team-based MP mode and less complex than the original two.
- Betterily optimized to run faster than the original game on the same hardware.
- Won't require DX10 for maximum details and full effects.
- Dialogues done by Bioshock's Susanna O'Connor.
- Completely stand-alone and as noted by developers, not an add-on but a full title.
- The possibility of Crysis 2 to rely heavily on Warhead's sales.
OCZ Technology Starts Offering 3GB PC2-5400 SODIMM Kits
OCZ Technology Group today announced the availability of its PC2-5400 SODIMM series in new 3GB optimized kits, allowing consumers to purchase upgrade RAM in the densities that fit their specific system needs. This addition to the DDR2 memory line offers consumers another option to incorporate high-quality hardware to promote extra performance on their mobile gaming station or portable office workstation.
AMD/ATI to grab 40% Market Share in Discrete Graphics in Q3, 2008
DigiTimes reports that with AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4800-series graphics cards successfully cutting into the US$200-300 mainstream market forcing Nvidia to cut the price of its previous generation GeForce 9800 GTX down to US$199, sources at graphics card makers see AMD's discrete graphics card market share as having a chance to increase to 40% in the third quarter this year from around 30% at the beginning of 2008.
Since Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GTX does not provide advantages in power consumption or performance over the same priced Radeon HD 4850, graphics card makers are more optimistic over AMD's upcoming performance.
Since Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GTX does not provide advantages in power consumption or performance over the same priced Radeon HD 4850, graphics card makers are more optimistic over AMD's upcoming performance.
Blu-ray to Overtake DVD Sales by 2012
The Entertainment Merchants' Association (EMA) in its recent Annual Report for 2007, concluded that in the year 2007, Hi-Definition video sales amounted to a mere 1.6 per cent of all video sales.
It is still estimated that high-definition has a long way to go before it could replace DVD as a standard movie format. The EMA said that sales of Blu-ray discs are expected to surpass those of standard DVDs by 2012 and could generate sales of $9.5 billion. By that time, total home video spending will be up to $25.6 billion, believes EMA.
It is still estimated that high-definition has a long way to go before it could replace DVD as a standard movie format. The EMA said that sales of Blu-ray discs are expected to surpass those of standard DVDs by 2012 and could generate sales of $9.5 billion. By that time, total home video spending will be up to $25.6 billion, believes EMA.
Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 Clusters Scale at up to 85% Efficiency
Microsoft announces that a Windows HPC Server 2008 beta-based system now ranks among the top 25 supercomputers of the world. They have also announced a release-candidate version of the operating system software available for download towards the end of June. The final release version of this software will be available by the end of this year.
A Beta 2 version of the said software was used by NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) in a system which ranked 23 in the list of top 500 supercomputers. The NCSA achieved 68.5 TFLOPs and 77.7% efficiency on 9,472 cores, making this one of the most powerful supercomputing systems in the world. This also marks the first time a Microsoft operating system-based cluster made it into the top 25.
A Beta 2 version of the said software was used by NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) in a system which ranked 23 in the list of top 500 supercomputers. The NCSA achieved 68.5 TFLOPs and 77.7% efficiency on 9,472 cores, making this one of the most powerful supercomputing systems in the world. This also marks the first time a Microsoft operating system-based cluster made it into the top 25.
Lian-Li Launches the all new Tyr X500 HTPC/Gaming Chassis
Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd has launched the Tyr X500 chassis designed as a stylish midi-tower HTPC/Gaming chassis. Combining the usual toned down profile of HTPC cases with the arresting larger profile of traditional Lian Li chassis; the Tyr X500 stands out in style. Similar to the X2000 Chassis, there is no hiding of this case as it proudly resembles multimedia speakers, and boldly displays your tasteful style. The Tyr X500 is destined to become your next HTPC/Gaming Chassis allowing unprecedented high performance components to be encompassed in the home theatre environment without compromising on looks and appeal. Not as big as the full tower X2000, the X500 is ideally suited to smaller environments, while catering for bigger PC components than traditional HTPC systems.
Bill Gates Retires From Microsoft
The founder and head of Microsoft, the world's largest software company Bill Gates steps down on Friday. One of the richest men in the world, Gates will now work full time for his charitable organization The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The 52-year-old will continue to be chairman though, but will only retain a nominal role in the software empire. He is still is the biggest shareholder of the company and his 8.7 per cent stake in Microsoft is worth about 23 billion dollars.
Gates authored the personal computer revolution three decades ago when he founded Microsoft along with his friend Paul Allen.
Microsoft released a commemorative video paying tribute to Bill's service to the company, titled "Bill Gates: Looking back, Moving Ahead". It can be watched on the company's website here.
The 52-year-old will continue to be chairman though, but will only retain a nominal role in the software empire. He is still is the biggest shareholder of the company and his 8.7 per cent stake in Microsoft is worth about 23 billion dollars.
Gates authored the personal computer revolution three decades ago when he founded Microsoft along with his friend Paul Allen.
Microsoft released a commemorative video paying tribute to Bill's service to the company, titled "Bill Gates: Looking back, Moving Ahead". It can be watched on the company's website here.
Radeon HD4800 Series Supports a 100% Ray-Traced Pipeline
During AMD's recent Cinema 2.0 event, TG Daily caught up with representatives of JulesWorld. They are associated with the video production process of an unnamed movie studio and adopted components that are standard in the FX industry (AMD Opteron + Nvidia Quadro). Ray-tracing was an early focus of the company and they were told that JulesWorld started experimenting with a 100% ray-traced pipeline on a GPU with the arrival of ATI's R600 (2900XT) chip. And the results were impressive.
JulesWorld will be releasing OTOY and LightScape, two distinctive technologies that could shape the future of movie and games production. The company developed a ray-tracer that uses elements of the DirectX 9 API as well as its own high-level code that uses Tessellation and anti-aliasing algorithms.
JulesWorld will be releasing OTOY and LightScape, two distinctive technologies that could shape the future of movie and games production. The company developed a ray-tracer that uses elements of the DirectX 9 API as well as its own high-level code that uses Tessellation and anti-aliasing algorithms.
Thursday, June 26th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Graphics Cards
Keyboards
Multimedia
PhysX Runs On RV670, Scores 22,000 CPU Marks in 3DMark Vantage
Eran Badit of NGOHQ.com successfully modified NVIDIA CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) to operate on an ATI GPU and has been able to run the NVIDIA PhysX layer on an RV670, the Radeon HD 3850.
He tells that enabling PhysX support on Radeon cards is not particularly difficult, leading us to believe that physics on graphics cards may not so much be a technology problem but an issue of corporate dynamics.
On his first run, Eran got a 22,606 CPU score in 3D Mark Vantage, enhancing the overall score to P4262. A comparable system without PhysX-support will cross the finish line at about P3800.
He tells that enabling PhysX support on Radeon cards is not particularly difficult, leading us to believe that physics on graphics cards may not so much be a technology problem but an issue of corporate dynamics.
On his first run, Eran got a 22,606 CPU score in 3D Mark Vantage, enhancing the overall score to P4262. A comparable system without PhysX-support will cross the finish line at about P3800.
Sony PLAYSTATION3 Movie Download Service Arrives this Summer
Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, revealed today that a new movie download service will hit the PlayStation 3 in the U.S. this summer. Players from Japan and Europe will have the opportunity to enjoy the service at later dates. More details are likely to be unveiled next month during Sony's E3 Media and Business Summit conference. "Please expect more from our evolving PlayStation business," Hirai said.
Matrox Introduces Five New QuadHead Graphics Cards
If you are a professional that need to operate with up to four displays in different modes using only a single video card, the latest Matrox M-series multi-monitor graphics might be just the right choice for you. The five new Matrox graphics are build around a new ASIC that offers native single-chip quad head support, PCI-E x16 performance, 512MB of DDR2 memory and fanless design. Using special dual and quad-monitor cables to connect all monitors the cards can output image to either DVI or VGA sources at maximum resolutions of 2560x1600 (note that this mode can only be achieved on two monitors in DVI mode). Of course, Maxtrox' M-series are also certified to work with both Windows XP and Windows Vista.
ASUS Might Discontinue Optical Drive Production
DigiTimes reports that the OEM contract ASUS has with Pioneer for manufacture of its optical disc drives will expire in July, 2008 and it is likely that ASUS abandon its disc drive manufacturing, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
Pioneer High Fidelity Taiwan, Pioneer's Taiwan subsidiary, confirmed the expiration of the OEM contract in July and the expansion of the company's own ODD production capacity in southern China, adding that Pioneer will consider new OEM partners to maintain its production efficiency following the expiration of its contract with ASUS.
Pioneer High Fidelity Taiwan, Pioneer's Taiwan subsidiary, confirmed the expiration of the OEM contract in July and the expansion of the company's own ODD production capacity in southern China, adding that Pioneer will consider new OEM partners to maintain its production efficiency following the expiration of its contract with ASUS.
Dell Lets Loose New Studio Notebooks
Dell today introduced "Studio," a new consumer product line designed for self-expression and creative living. Studio products are highly expressive and personalized - inside and out - combining aesthetics and technology into a fresh approach to hi-def mobile lifestyles.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280/260 WHQL Driver Version 177.41 Released
I hope you haven't already installed the beta driver we reported earlier today, because a new one is now available for download. Not that the betas are bad, but have in mind that the newer 177.41 WHQL driver is already here. Here are some of the highlights for this release:
Windows Vista 32-bit|64-bit
- Supports GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs.
- Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI Technology with GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs.
- Supports CUDA Technology.
- Supports Folding@home distributing computing application.
Windows Vista 32-bit|64-bit
Seagate's New Central Axis Makes Back Up and Access to Files Easier Than Ever
In an effort to make data accessible anywhere in our home Seagate today presented Maxtor Central Axis, a network storage drive that can be used by the whole family. The hard drive inside Maxtor Central Axis is a 7200 rpm model with 32MB cache and has 1TB of storage that every computer in the home can back up to or stream at any time. Users connect to the drive via a single gigabit ethernet port, but there are also two USB ports for adding extra peripherals that can be shared across the network along with the NAS storage device. Also because the Central Axis drive is connected to a router and not formatted for an individual computer, files can be accessed and stored from both Mac OS X and Windows operated PCs. Besides that, you can easily log into a remote access service from an Internet browser and securely access or share the files you have stored on the device. There are no applications to download or plug-ins required. Central Axis establishes a secure connection to the service without the need to disable firewalls. All that is needed to access the drive from any Web browser is a username and password. The Maxtor Central Axis 1TB capacity drive is expected to be available in the US in July from major retailers, distributors and online stores, as well as at Maxstore, for a suggested retail price of $329.99. Availability in Europe and Asia will come later this year.
Microsoft Releases Reliability and Performance update for Windows Vista SP1-based PCs
Microsoft has issued some fresh code for Windows Vista SP1 users in the form of a performance and reliability update. This specific release targets all Windows Vista editions, and promises to resolve various issues that have been submited by customers using the Error Reporting service or Microsoft Customer Support Services. It's also said to help improve the performance and reliability of Windows Vista. The update is available for both Windows Vista SP1 32-bit and 64-bit here.
Arctic Cooling Enhances the Arctic RC with Turbo Module
The Swiss low noise cooling solution provider Arctic Cooling launched their latest RAM cooler Arctic RC earlier, providing a revolutionary RAM cooling solution for enthusiasts. To reinforce the cooling capacity of the ARCTIC RC, the company today launched the RC Turbo Module, a dual-fan cooler that reduces the RAM temperature even further.
Same as other ARCTIC COOLING products, the RC Turbo Module's dual 56mm fans are installed with low noise impeller. As a result, the fans are extremely quiet which generate only 0.1 Sone of noise even spinning at full load. Gamers can enjoy the both, the coolness and quietness brought by this RAM fan cooler. The RC Turbo Module is suitable for one to four RAMs with two pieces of ARCTIC RC attached to it. The RC Turbo Module offers a 6-year limited warranty. It will be available in July 2008. The MSRP is US$13.95 and 8.95€ (excl VAT).
Same as other ARCTIC COOLING products, the RC Turbo Module's dual 56mm fans are installed with low noise impeller. As a result, the fans are extremely quiet which generate only 0.1 Sone of noise even spinning at full load. Gamers can enjoy the both, the coolness and quietness brought by this RAM fan cooler. The RC Turbo Module is suitable for one to four RAMs with two pieces of ARCTIC RC attached to it. The RC Turbo Module offers a 6-year limited warranty. It will be available in July 2008. The MSRP is US$13.95 and 8.95€ (excl VAT).
NVIDIA Release Beta PhysX Driver For Public
NVIDIA Releases Beta PhysX Driver For Public
NVIDIA releases the beta driver 177.39 for PhysX support on some GeForce GPU's. They have also said that a new stable driver, the WHQL 177.44 sans PhysX support would be released later today.
Depending on your Windows setup, you can download the driver from these locations: (please note, it is a beta driver, refer to the "Products Supported" tab for a list of supported products)
32-bit Windows Vista | 64-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows XP | 64-bit Windows XP
NVIDIA releases the beta driver 177.39 for PhysX support on some GeForce GPU's. They have also said that a new stable driver, the WHQL 177.44 sans PhysX support would be released later today.
Depending on your Windows setup, you can download the driver from these locations: (please note, it is a beta driver, refer to the "Products Supported" tab for a list of supported products)
32-bit Windows Vista | 64-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows XP | 64-bit Windows XP
AMD Release ATI All-In-Wonder HD Series Card
AMD Releases ATI All-In-Wonder HD Series Card
AMD today expanded The Ultimate Visual Experience for North America with the ATI All-In-Wonder HD, combining award-winning ATI Radeon Premium graphics and ATI TV Wonder HD tuner technology card in one PCI Express 2.0 solution. As the newest multimedia powerhouse to join the long line of All-In-Wonder offerings, ATI All-in-Wonder HD transforms the PC into a highly immersive digital video recorder for HDTV and analog TV, plus expands the realm of exceptional gaming with cinematic HD graphics for mainstream PCs. Blu-ray disc playback can be enjoyed in full HD glory (1080p) thanks to ATI All-in-Wonder HD's unified video decoder (UVD) technology, ensuring movies play back smoothly and with incredible detail.
The graphics core is derived from the Radeon HD 3650, 55 nm, clocked at 725 MHz (memory: 600 MHz DDR2). AMD claims that the graphics performance of the card will beat a standard Radeon HD 3650 by 5 to 15% in popular games. The card incorporates the ATI Theater Pro 650 chip. Other prominent features include ClearQAM, a hardware MPEG-2 encoder and full hardware acceleration for H.264 and VC-1. The Adaptive Comb-filter provides better image quality.
For more information, please visit this page.
AMD today expanded The Ultimate Visual Experience for North America with the ATI All-In-Wonder HD, combining award-winning ATI Radeon Premium graphics and ATI TV Wonder HD tuner technology card in one PCI Express 2.0 solution. As the newest multimedia powerhouse to join the long line of All-In-Wonder offerings, ATI All-in-Wonder HD transforms the PC into a highly immersive digital video recorder for HDTV and analog TV, plus expands the realm of exceptional gaming with cinematic HD graphics for mainstream PCs. Blu-ray disc playback can be enjoyed in full HD glory (1080p) thanks to ATI All-in-Wonder HD's unified video decoder (UVD) technology, ensuring movies play back smoothly and with incredible detail.
The graphics core is derived from the Radeon HD 3650, 55 nm, clocked at 725 MHz (memory: 600 MHz DDR2). AMD claims that the graphics performance of the card will beat a standard Radeon HD 3650 by 5 to 15% in popular games. The card incorporates the ATI Theater Pro 650 chip. Other prominent features include ClearQAM, a hardware MPEG-2 encoder and full hardware acceleration for H.264 and VC-1. The Adaptive Comb-filter provides better image quality.
For more information, please visit this page.
Asetek Intros First Liquid Cooling For ATI HD 4000 Series
Asetek's industry-leading, LCLC liquid cooling solution is now available for AMD's latest ATI Radeon HD 4870 family of graphics cards. The unique, single-slot liquid cooling approach provides OEMs with an extremely high overclocking capability enabling them to design and produce outstanding gaming and entertainment products with virtually no noise.
To meet the demands of advanced gaming or graphics-intensive applications, Asetek's highly integrated solution lowers the GPU temperatures found on the 4870 by as much as 26 degrees, enabling it to run significantly cooler in extreme performance modes of operation. And, since the Asetek solution is totally liquid cooled, the graphics card can run completely silent, except for the system heat exchanger fan that typically runs at a quiet 30 dB(A).
To meet the demands of advanced gaming or graphics-intensive applications, Asetek's highly integrated solution lowers the GPU temperatures found on the 4870 by as much as 26 degrees, enabling it to run significantly cooler in extreme performance modes of operation. And, since the Asetek solution is totally liquid cooled, the graphics card can run completely silent, except for the system heat exchanger fan that typically runs at a quiet 30 dB(A).
Wednesday, June 25th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
ATI Radeon HD4850 Transcodes Four 1080p Video Files Simultaneously in Real-Time
With advancements in visual-computing technologies on an all-time high, and graphics processing units with immense 3D computational power coming out by the fortnights, consumers benefit the most. In the process of evaluating graphics processors' abilities using the latest 3D games and synthetic 3D benchmark software alone, we are probably missing out on other primary uses of a GPU which when tapped, show just how potent a GPU can be. Both NVIDIA and ATI have had video-transcoding features that until exploited by software are close to rudimentary.
Cyberlink, have been working on technologies that enable their software to harness the video-transcoding abilities of GPU's. Shuichi Takagi, CyberLink's vice president of of business development ran a demonstration of PowerDirector 7 that is capable of GPU-accelerated video-transcoding, on a recently launched ATI Radeon HD4850 512 MB, proving that the hardware and software is capable of converting four HD MPEG-2 movies into MPEG-4 simultaneously, in real time. According to Shuichi, it will take about 30 minutes to process four full-length movies and compress them into handheld-friendly 200+ MB files.
Cyberlink, have been working on technologies that enable their software to harness the video-transcoding abilities of GPU's. Shuichi Takagi, CyberLink's vice president of of business development ran a demonstration of PowerDirector 7 that is capable of GPU-accelerated video-transcoding, on a recently launched ATI Radeon HD4850 512 MB, proving that the hardware and software is capable of converting four HD MPEG-2 movies into MPEG-4 simultaneously, in real time. According to Shuichi, it will take about 30 minutes to process four full-length movies and compress them into handheld-friendly 200+ MB files.
Coolink Releases Chillaramic Silver Thermal Compound
Coolink today released its new Chillaramic thermal compound. Thanks to ceramic nano particles, Chillaramic achieves outstanding thermal transfer while not being electrically conductive. Chillaramic is easy to apply, easy to clean off and comes in big 10g tubes that will last you through more than 30 applications without breaking your wallet.
Dell First to Achieve 80 PLUS Gold Energy Efficiency
After last month Cooler Master won the first ever 80 PLUS Silver certificate, Dell today in his turn announced that it has become the first to achieve 80 PLUS Gold-certification for a server power supply. The 80 PLUS certification enables manufacturers and customers to compare and contrast power supplies based on established criteria from Energy Star and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Dell's new 80 PLUS Gold power supply meets July 2009 Climate Savers targets for servers more than a year ahead of schedule, which require 92 percent minimum efficiency for the power supply unit at 50 percent of rated output. Earlier this month, Dell also became the first Tier-1 computer manufacturer to achieve 80 PLUS Silver-certification for its client desktops.
MSI Officially Launch Their Radeon HD4800 Series
MSI, a leading manufacturer of computer products, proudly unveils its latest R4800 series graphics cards for the game ethnic groups. MSI R4870-T2D512 and R4850-T2D512 support the DirectX 10.1 framework of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and both have the 800 stream processor, which achieves the unprecedented levels teraflop (1000Gflops) computing capability. It is ten times higher than any high-end CPU. MSI R4800 series graphics card comes with the superb computing capability which can be converted to high-definition games special effects, and provide the extreme gaming experience.
MSI R4800 series graphics cards are based on the latest 2nd generation of 55nm GPU. Integrated with the ATI PowerPlay power-saving technology, MSI R4800 provides twice the performance enhancement with the same watt. It conforms to the environmental energy conservation worldwide initiative with MSI (ECOlution) environmental protection ideal. In addition, MSI R4800 series graphics cards also have built the enhanced version of UVD 2.0 video decoder core. "High performance", "energy efficiency", and "HD video experience" are the main features of MSI R4800 series graphics cards.
MSI R4800 series graphics cards are based on the latest 2nd generation of 55nm GPU. Integrated with the ATI PowerPlay power-saving technology, MSI R4800 provides twice the performance enhancement with the same watt. It conforms to the environmental energy conservation worldwide initiative with MSI (ECOlution) environmental protection ideal. In addition, MSI R4800 series graphics cards also have built the enhanced version of UVD 2.0 video decoder core. "High performance", "energy efficiency", and "HD video experience" are the main features of MSI R4800 series graphics cards.
GECUBE Craftsmanship Delivers Extreme Graphics Performance
Well-known graphics card maker GECUBE, released today with great fanfare, the new HD 4870 series of high-end graphics cards, the successor to its popular HD 4850 series. The GECUBE HD 4870 series comes with exclusive GDDR5 memory and the latest AMD graphics technology. Built on the 2nd generation 55nm chip process, it incorporates the PCI-Express 2.0 interface, as well as support for DirectX10.1/SM4.1 and ATI CrossFireX. Also included, are built-in HDMI and HDCP together with support for Blu-ray and HD-DVD decoding technology. Extreme processing power, coupled with high-speed memory performance, delivers world-class video visuals that will introduce gamers to the most realistic audio and video experience to date.
PowerColor Introduces HD 4870/4850 Boards
TUL Corporation - A leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announced the new generation of enthusiast graphics cards - The PowerColor HD 4870 and HD 4850. Based on the RV770 core chip, the PowerColor HD 4870/4850 support GDDR3/GDDR5 high-speed memory and aim to deliver superior visual performance.
The PowerColor HD 4800 series has adopted 55nm technology and is powered by ATI's Radeon HD 4800 graphics processing units. The HD 4870 GPU and memory run at 750 MHz and 900 MHz respectively, with 512MB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit memory bus design and memory data transmission rates up to 3.6 Gbps. As for the HD 4850, it's equipped with 512 MB of GDDR3 on a 256-bit memory bus design, whilst the GPU and memory run at 625 MHz and 1986 MHz respectively.
The PowerColor HD 4800 series has adopted 55nm technology and is powered by ATI's Radeon HD 4800 graphics processing units. The HD 4870 GPU and memory run at 750 MHz and 900 MHz respectively, with 512MB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit memory bus design and memory data transmission rates up to 3.6 Gbps. As for the HD 4850, it's equipped with 512 MB of GDDR3 on a 256-bit memory bus design, whilst the GPU and memory run at 625 MHz and 1986 MHz respectively.
Two 45nm Phenom X4 and Ultra-Mobile CPU Slated for Q4
Two 45nm Phenom X4 and an Ultra-Mobile CPU Slated for Q4
NordicHardware reports that in Q4 2008, Advanced Micro Devices is slating two models of 45nm Phenom X4 quad-core chips along with a cheap ultra-mobile CPU aimed to compete with the Intel Atom and VIA Nano processors for release. The two new Phenom parts would be based on the new Denreb core to be succeeded by Propus based CPU's in Q1 2009.
Apart from retail models, AMD plans to release a CPU targeted for the ultra-mobile consumer electronics market. The CPU would be derived from the tested K8 architecture that is supposed to give it a design advantage over competing products from Intel and VIA. A major design advantage is of the memory controller being integrated on die that effectively eliminates the northbridge, saving on power consumption. The CPU has a rated TDP of 8W.
NordicHardware reports that in Q4 2008, Advanced Micro Devices is slating two models of 45nm Phenom X4 quad-core chips along with a cheap ultra-mobile CPU aimed to compete with the Intel Atom and VIA Nano processors for release. The two new Phenom parts would be based on the new Denreb core to be succeeded by Propus based CPU's in Q1 2009.
Apart from retail models, AMD plans to release a CPU targeted for the ultra-mobile consumer electronics market. The CPU would be derived from the tested K8 architecture that is supposed to give it a design advantage over competing products from Intel and VIA. A major design advantage is of the memory controller being integrated on die that effectively eliminates the northbridge, saving on power consumption. The CPU has a rated TDP of 8W.
Analysts: Seagate Looking to Acquire NAND Source
Industry insiders reported yesterday that Seagate, the largest hard disk drive manufacturer, might be planning to take a big stake of a NAND manufacturer. Analyst Daniel Amir of financial advisory/asset management firm Lazard assumes that Seagate Technology may buy out Intel's 49% stake in IM Flash Technologies - a joint venture company between the microprocessor giant and Micron Technology. If true, Seagate will afford to pay as much as $2 billion and seal the deal. Such deal would help the company to go deep into the rapidly growing SSD and flash storage market. On the counter side, it would require Micron to agree to lose Intel as its partner. That's also one of the reasons why other flash industry watchers, are lead to believe that Seagate may be looking for a deal with flash chip makers Hynix and SanDisk instead.
Microsoft Continues to Support Windows XP until 2014
Microsoft on Monday announced that it will continue to support its Windows XP operating system not until 2011 as it was said before, but all the way up to 2014. The new 13 year lifecycle was formally announced by MS senior VP Bill Veghte. He has sent a letter to major customers in the US, promising that the company will continue to release security patches "and other critical updates" for Windows XP until April, 2014. "Our ongoing support for Windows XP is the result of our recognition that people keep their Windows-based PCs for many years," Veghte wrote. In addition Microsoft will continue to make Windows XP available to manufacturers of low-cost PCs until June 2010, although the official sales cut-off date for the "eXPerience" OS comes after less then a week (June 30, 2008).
Toshiba's Newest Notebooks to Feature Modified CELL Processor
The first thing that comes to your mind when you talk about CELL Broadband Engine is probably the Sony Playstation 3. Toshiba, a prominent player in ultra-portable computing have announced that a new pair of laptops, the Qosmio G55 and Qosmio F40, which will feature processors derived from the CELL design methodology. Processing will be composed of a two-stage processor, the modified CELL processor SPE cores will handle the heavy calculations required to handle processor-intensive duties like processing HD video. The main processor in the pair of notebooks will be an Intel Core 2 Duo. The World's most powerful supercomputer, the IBM Roadrunner, incorporates CELL technology. The CELL variation used consists of four SSP's apart from the arbiter, Toshiba brands this chip as Toshiba Quad-Core HD processor.
The G55 which has an 18.4-inch high-definition screen, 500GB of hard-disk space, NVidia GeForce 9600M graphics processor, dual digital TV tuners and wireless LAN including 802.11n will be priced from USD 2,700 and the F40, which has a 15-inch screen and 250GB hard-disk drive, from USD 2,320. Toshiba plans to put the machines on sale overseas but has yet to announce launch details.
The G55 which has an 18.4-inch high-definition screen, 500GB of hard-disk space, NVidia GeForce 9600M graphics processor, dual digital TV tuners and wireless LAN including 802.11n will be priced from USD 2,700 and the F40, which has a 15-inch screen and 250GB hard-disk drive, from USD 2,320. Toshiba plans to put the machines on sale overseas but has yet to announce launch details.
Tuesday, June 24th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
Sound Cards
Winchip DDR2 667 MHz 16 GB Quad Kit Review
There are not many manufacturers offering such massive kits, but Winchip has made some waves before with unique offerings. Their 667 MHz 4x 4 GB kit runs at CL5. Such a large capacity kit is intended for very specific scenarios. We try to showcase some of these.
Charter Communications Gives Up on Behavioral Add Plan
One of the United States largest cable-based ISPs had been planning to implement a program to monitor users' web surfing habits and specifically tailor adds to them. The program was to use NebuAd to track its users. Privacy advocates called the program an attack on users' privacy. Charter announced today that it was suspending the program. The announcement comes less than a week after two digital rights groups, Public Knowledge and Free Press, accused NebuAd and participating broadband ISPs of spying on users. While Charter's original focus groups reacted favorably to the program, since then many customers have raised questions and suggest improvements. Two senior members of the U.S. House of Representatives also sent a letter to Charter questioning the plan.
Microsoft Merger Rumor Prompts Yahoo Trading
Rumors are circulating once again that Microsoft is holding acquisition talks with Yahoo. This time Microsoft's offer is supposedly lower than its previous offer of 33 USD per share, which yahoo turned down when it requested 37 USD per share. The rumored talks have given a slight boost to Yahoo's stock, which started at 21.18 USD today, but rose to 23.71 USD. The stock also exhibited a higher than normal trading volume of 68.1 million share, compared to a daily average of 39.3 million. Representative of both Yahoo and Microsoft declined to comment on the rumored talks.
Malicious Trojan Horse Plagues Apple Mac OS Users
Nowadays everyone will tell you that most virus, spyware, malware and other malicious definitions are written solely for Windows, but it appears that times have changed a bit. Security experts are warning now about a new Trojan horse released in the wild, targeting Apple operating systems or more specifically Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard (version 10.4 and 10.5). In addition to the usual stuff a trojan can do (run in background, open ports, steal your passwords, replicate etc.) this one can also log what you type in every moment, take screenshots of your active desktop and even take a picture of you using Mac's built-in iSight camera. Here's how it works: AppleScript.THT comes either as a 3.1MB application dubbed AStht_v06 or as a 60KB compiled AppleScript script called ASthtv05. Once started on a Mac OS system it adds itself to the System Login Items and thus runs with root privileges every time the OS is started. Once the system is infected AppleScript.THT also moves itself into the /Library/Caches/ folder. To protect your system against this threat, security experts advice to run SecureMac MacScan 2.5.2 anti-virus software with the latest Spyware Definitions update (2008011). More details on the malicious code and additional removal instructions are posted here.
Corsair Intros Mac Memory For The Newest Line Of Mac Pro Systems
Corsair, announced today the launch of their new Mac Memory kits made especially for the newest Mac Pro desktop systems. The new Corsair Mac Memory kits are fully-buffered 800MHz solutions, available immediately in 4GB (2 x 2GB modules) DIMM kits.
The new Corsair Memory Line for the Mac Pro is immediately available through Corsair's authorized distributors and resellers world-wide, priced at $250 for the 4GB Mac Memory kit. Corsair memory products are backed by a Limited Lifetime Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Technical Service Xpress is also available.
The new Corsair Memory Line for the Mac Pro is immediately available through Corsair's authorized distributors and resellers world-wide, priced at $250 for the 4GB Mac Memory kit. Corsair memory products are backed by a Limited Lifetime Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Technical Service Xpress is also available.
OCZ Technology Announces Partnership with Fatal1ty
OCZ Technology Group today announced a partnership with Fatal1ty and Auravision, who manages the prominent brand name. Under the agreement, Fatal1ty and OCZ will collaborate on the technical specifications and design for a range of high performance memory and power supplies which will be specifically engineered to meet the unique needs and requirements of gamers.
Team Fortress 2 Update Released
Updates to Valve's Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:
- Reduced Medic's unlockable requirements to match that of the Pyro's. Medic players now meeting the requirements will receive their unlockables shortly after joining a server
- Fixed Spy sapper view model animation popping
- Fixed another issue with the Hot on your Heels achievement
- Incorporated the new Russian fonts into the base Team Fortress 2 fonts. Fixes the missing fonts problem when running in Russian with English VO
- Fixed "Hot on your Heels" counting non-flamethrower based kills
- Fixed some Pyro achievements not working on some servers
- Fixed Compression Blast and Flare Gun trail particles on DX8
- Fixed Spy cloaked as Scout in response rules for all classes
Microsoft Reportedly Recruiting Engineers Away from Yahoo
Microsoft has started a recruitment-drive aimed at Yahoo's engineers after futile attempts to acquire the company.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Microsoft sent a detailed email to marketing staff and select engineers. The email reportedly said. "I know a lot of people from Yahoo have been reaching out to us lately because they are nervous about the pending layoffs. I wanted to give you an opportunity to explore Microsoft careers as well."
Microsoft has several offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it is now showing a renewed interest in adding office space and employees. Microsoft already has offices in San Francisco and Mountain View, about one million square feet of office space, and 2,000 employees.
Sources: DailyTech, The Mercury News
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Microsoft sent a detailed email to marketing staff and select engineers. The email reportedly said. "I know a lot of people from Yahoo have been reaching out to us lately because they are nervous about the pending layoffs. I wanted to give you an opportunity to explore Microsoft careers as well."
Microsoft has several offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it is now showing a renewed interest in adding office space and employees. Microsoft already has offices in San Francisco and Mountain View, about one million square feet of office space, and 2,000 employees.
Sources: DailyTech, The Mercury News
Dell, Hitachi, Western Digital Sued by Convolve for Patent Infringement
The latest patent infringement lawsuit sees Dell and storage giants Hitachi GST and Western Digital as being guilty of violating patents for data storage drives. In a case filed in a Texas court, the N.Y.-based company Convolve is accusing Dell, Hitachi and WD of infringing on patents 4,916,635 and 6,314,473. The 4,916,635 patent, entitled "Shaping command inputs to minimize unwanted dynamics," was filed on September 12, 1988 by Neil Singer, a principal at Convolve, whilst the second one entitled "System for removing selected unwanted frequencies in accordance with altered settings in a user interface of a data storage device," was filed on March 4, 1999, and eventually assigned again to Convolve. Both patents are related to controlling the seek time and acoustic noise levels of storage devices. In particularly, the lawsuit asserts that Dell's Dimension 2400, Dimension C521 and Optiplex 740 models infringe its patent. In addition, Hitachi HDS722580VLAT20 Deskstar hard disk drive and Hitachi L020 and Hitachi L030 storage products as well as Western Digital's WD 400BB, WD800 JB, WD 1600, WD 2000 and other hard drive models also violate the two patents licensed by Convolve. Convolve is asking the court to order defendants to pay compensatory damages, interest fees and legal costs.
Intel Plans to Launch Three Bloomfield Processors for Q4'08
Intel is being reported to launch three Nehalem-based quad-core processors (Bloomfield) for the end of this year (Q4). Intel does not provide any official names yet, but the CPUs will be identified as XE, P1 and MS3. Working at 3.2GHz, 2.93GHz and 2.66GHz respectively, all three members will have a TDP of 130W, 8MB L3 cache and will support simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) technology. At the time when the new LGA 1366 CPUs become available, Intel will already sell the X58 and ICH10 chipset combo designed especially for them. The X58 chipset will adopt Intel's latest QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) architecture replacing its longstanding FSB design.
NVIDIA to host Guinness World Record attempt by gamers at NVISION '08
LAN Party gaming will reach a new level during a Guinness World Record-setting attempt at the NVISION 08 event on August 25 in San Jose, California. The aim of the event is to make history as the world's "Longest Non-Stop LAN Party."
The goal for the Guinness World Record is for a dedicated team of gamers to play video games continuously for 36 hours (10 minute breaks are allowed for every 60 minutes of continuous gaming). If the record is achieved, the participating team members will receive numerous prizes, including a commemorative medal, custom gear, gift cards, and of course, world recognition. The attempt will take place in a special, reserved section of the NVISION 08 GeForce LAN Party.
Gamers who are serious about the attempt and have what it takes to handle a GeForce LAN Guinness World Record seat at NVISION 08 should visit this page.
The goal for the Guinness World Record is for a dedicated team of gamers to play video games continuously for 36 hours (10 minute breaks are allowed for every 60 minutes of continuous gaming). If the record is achieved, the participating team members will receive numerous prizes, including a commemorative medal, custom gear, gift cards, and of course, world recognition. The attempt will take place in a special, reserved section of the NVISION 08 GeForce LAN Party.
Gamers who are serious about the attempt and have what it takes to handle a GeForce LAN Guinness World Record seat at NVISION 08 should visit this page.
Will AMD Rain on NVIDIA's 9800GTX+ Party?
TG Daily is reporting that AMD is preparing to stoke up its GPU war with NVIDIA by unleashing overclocked HD 4850 powered solutions, in order to parry against rival NVIDIA's 9800GTX+. Apparently, by removing overclocking restrictions, AIB's will be able to offer a range of overclocked SKU's, with higher core and memory clock speeds, together with up-rated cooling solutions not being a stretch of the imagination. It is claimed that senior ATI officials anticipate overclocked SKU's to offer an increase of 50 MHz to the core clock speed, compared to currently available HD 4850 parts. Company names on the proverbial grapevine and, set to offer these solutions are, unsurprisingly, HIS, together with Sapphire Technology and Diamond. The upcoming HD 4870 isn't expected to escape pre-overclocking treatment either.
BFG Technologies Announces OC2 and OCX GeForce GTX 280 Graphics Cards
BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today, the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC2 and the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX factory overclocked graphics cards.
With the launch of each new NVIDIA graphics processing unit (GPU), BFG typically releases three increasing levels of factory overclock: OC, OC2, and OCX. All BFG factory overclocked graphics cards go through extensive testing to find the right mix of speeds for the core, memory, and shader clocks that will produce the best performance and uncompromised stability at each level. As with all BFG Tech graphics cards, the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC2 and OCX versions are backed with 24/7/365 free technical support and a lifetime warranty.
With the launch of each new NVIDIA graphics processing unit (GPU), BFG typically releases three increasing levels of factory overclock: OC, OC2, and OCX. All BFG factory overclocked graphics cards go through extensive testing to find the right mix of speeds for the core, memory, and shader clocks that will produce the best performance and uncompromised stability at each level. As with all BFG Tech graphics cards, the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC2 and OCX versions are backed with 24/7/365 free technical support and a lifetime warranty.
A-DATA Launches the World’s Fastest CompactFlash Card 350X
With the insistence on high quality products and the breakthrough of innovation, A-DATA Technology introduces the Turbo Series CF 350X memory card especially for professional photographers. The excellent data transferring of the read speed at 52 MB/sec and the write speed at 47 MB/sec along with the availability of 8 GB and 16 GB make Turbo CF 350X the perfect partner for your high-end cameras.
Logitech Uses Carl Zeiss Optics in its Latest 2MP QuickCam Vision Pro Webcam
To help you stay close to those who matter most, Logitech today unveiled its first Mac-compatible webcam with premium autofocus technology and Carl Zeiss optics: the Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam for Mac. The new Logitech webcam delivers image-perfect detail and clarity, and exceptional video calling with iChat and Skype.
Force3D Ushers Forth HD 4870 SKU Specifications
Force3D has, today, announced the specifications of its first SKU powered by AMD's HD 4870 GPU. A core speed of 750 MHz, paired together with 512 MB of GDDR5 memory running at a frequency of 3.6 GB/s are the order of the day, whilst technicalities such as the presence of 800 stream processors and a 256-bit memory interface prove commonality with AMD's HD 4850 offering. Using Extreme settings, Force3D's own 3DMark Vantage results claim that their HD 4870 iteration has a speed advantage of 58% over the HD 3870X2.
Lian-Li launches the all new Tyr X2000 HTPC/Gaming Chassis
Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd has launched the Tyr X2000 chassis designed to stand out in your living room in absolute Lian Li style. Taking the original concept of low profile and slim designs and turning it completely around; there is no hiding of this case as it proudly resembles multimedia speakers, and emblazons your fashion sense in style. The Tyr X2000 is aligned to become the most unique HTPC/Gaming Chassis on the market today allowing unprecedented high performance components to be encompassed in the home theatre environment without compromising on looks and appeal. The stylish and unique side panels accept 2x 5.25" Optical Device Drives and one 3.5" drive, which are accessible from either the left or right side, while the front face is for ergonomics and airflow. The 6x hot swap RAID SATA HDD bays can contain terabytes of multimedia for your viewing pleasure while the spaciously zoned interior can accommodate virtually any system you can think of.
BenQ Intros the World's First 21.5-inch 16:9 Desktop LCD with Full 1080p Support
With 1080p rapidly becoming the new standard in display content BenQ released E2200HDA, the world's first 21.5" Full HD 16:9 LCD monitor featuring 100% mapping to 1080p content. With 100% dot-for-dot matching to Full HD materials, BenQ's new 16:9 large screen delivers immaculate rendering of 1080p content without losing any detail. The screen provides native resolution of 1920x1080, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness and a fast 5ms response time. Benq also pack E2200HDA with integrated speakers and its Senseye technology. Five new 21.5" and 24" Full HD 16:9 models will further pioneer 1080p displays later on, spreading across BenQ's E Series and M Series LCD displays. BenQ 16:9 1080p Full HD LCD displays will be available in China and select countries in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America in Q3.
Launch of GELID Solutions - New Thermal Solution Brand
One of the founders of Arctic Cooling Gebhard SCHERRER and his business associate VC TRAN incorporate a new thermal solution company GELID Solutions Ltd. in Hong Kong.
GELID Solutions: The English word "gelid" is derived from the Latin word "gelidus" (extremely cold, icy).
GELID Solutions: The English word "gelid" is derived from the Latin word "gelidus" (extremely cold, icy).
NVIDIA WHQL Driver Version 175.19 Released
NVIDIA has released a new WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series GPUs (GeForce FX is also supported only in Windows XP driver version). Version 175.19 brings improved 3D performance and load times for the above mentioned video cards in some DirectX 9 and OpenGL applications. It also patches several game and application compatibility issues. Please read the release notes for more information.
DOWNLOAD: Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit/64-bit
DOWNLOAD: Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit/64-bit
Monday, June 23rd 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
PSUs
Storage
Leadtek PX9800 GTX GeForce 9800 GTX Review
After AMD's successful launch of the HD 4850 Series, NVIDIA decided to drop the price point of the GeForce 9800 GTX to only $199. At this price the card becomes a very affordable product that offers all the performance you need to play the latest games. An additional plus is the support for PhysX via NVIDIA's CUDA implementation.
Kingston Technology 1800MHz HyperX DDR3 Memory Wins Intel XMP Certification
Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced that its HyperX 1800MHz DDR3 memory has been certified under the Intel Extreme Memory Profile (Intel XMP) validation program to offer PC builders and gaming enthusiasts, more performance memory options and tuning flexibility when constructing high-performance systems using select Intel X38/X48-series chipsets.
Rumor: Star Craft 2 Hits Retail on December 3rd This Year
Word got round that Blizzard's next installment of the award winning Star Craft strategy game is due to hit retail shelves on December 3, 2008. The report is everything but official, so don't get too excited.
Many froth-mouthed fans of Blizzard's intergalactic real-time strategy masterpiece Starcraft have anxiously been awaiting word on when the next installment of the series would land in their anticipatory laps. Blizz has been characteristically tight-lipped about the title's launch window, though we were recently informed that an online SKU search for Starcraft II on Best Buy, Circuit City, and Gamestop's web sites reveal the same supposed release date of December 3, 2008. With no confirmation from Blizzard, it's far from official
ASUS Launches World's First ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 1GB Onboard Memory
Catering to users who require top notch graphics cards, ASUS, world-leading producer of quality graphic solutions revealed today the world's first 1GB onboard memory version of the latest ATI Radeon HD 4850 GPU with the ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/1G. The unparalleled large onboard memory size is specially designed for feature-rich DirectX 10 gaming, and the best multimedia playback at ultra-high resolutions and maximum quality settings.
Inno3D Gets Ready with GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB GDDR3
Inno3D recently unveiled it's first card based on the new 55nm G92 based core from NVIDIA. The announcement of Inno3D GeForce 9800 GTX+ comes earlier than the scheduled mid-July launch date, but benchmarks of the plus cards are already starting to appear everywhere, so it's not a big deal. The card features the usual specs: 512MB of GDDR3 memory, 256-bit memory bus, and 738MHz/2200MHz core/memory clock speeds respectively. Charts on the Inno3D web page suggest that the 9800 GTX+ is up to 15% faster than the regular GeForce 9800 GTX.
G.Skill Intros New 4GB and 8GB DDR2 PI-8800 Memory Kits
Double-data-rate two synchronous dynamic random access memory or as we also know it as DDR2 RAM is still very widespread today, and memory manufacturer G.Skill is looking to keep demand up by introducing a new set of DDR2 PI-8800 kits available in 4GB or 8GB of capacity. The G.Skill PI memory series are especially designed to provide stable and long-term performance for overclockers and computer enthusiasts. Sold in different capacities: F2-8800CL5D-4GBPI (2x2GB) and F2-8800CL5Q-8GBPI (4x2GB) both these kits operate at 1100MHz with CL5-5-5-15 latencies and 1.8-1.9V. Additionally G.Skill sells them with a lifetime warranty. For more information, please visit this page.
Saturday, June 21st 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Cooling
CPU Coolers
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
Multimedia
Xigmatek Achilles CPU Cooler Review
The Xigmatek Achilles S1284 heatsink has many improvements over the famous HDT-S1283 cooler. There are now four U-shaped heatpipes, and they are nickel-plated. The fan design is new and unique as well, with its white LEDs that light up the fan's smoke frame and orange blades.
NVIDIA Optimizes Notebook PCs With New Lineup of GPUs
As the global demand for better visual experiences makes its way into the notebook market, NVIDIA Corporation continues to address that demand with the introduction of a new line-up of notebook GPUs, the NVIDIA GeForce 9M Series of graphics processors, and a new graphics innovation, NVIDIA Hybrid SLI technology. These new technologies enable customers to optimize their notebooks to power today's visual applications, such as: the latest operating systems, photo editing, mapping software, games, and HD movies. Considered one of the most important processors inside the notebook PC, and perhaps the most important, an NVIDIA GPU enables a completely flexible, scalable, and high-definition entertainment platform.
Friday, June 20th 2008
Today's Files
Today's Reviews
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
75% of TOP 500 Supercomputers Now Intel-based
The just released TOP 500 Supercomputing ranking list verifies that the wide majority of today's systems are based on Intel multi-core processors and able to evaluate and calculate large volumes of data and complex algorithms very rapidly. 375 or 75 percent of the ranked supercomputers are based on Intel processors -- more than ever before. In the year 2000, only four - yes four - systems were based on Intel architecture, illustrating just how rapidly the leading processor architecture for supercomputers has been embraced. Intel's push into quad-core based systems is also well represented. In just over one and a half years since the first quad core processor, more than half (257 systems) now contain four-brained Intel chips.
ATI Hotfix for Radeon HD 4850/4870 Video Cards Released
ATI today issued a hotfix for all owners of the new Radeon HD 4800 series cards. This patch applies to both Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 and improves overall performance and stability. Also note that this hotfix includes the Display Driver and Catalyst Control Center.
DOWNLOAD
DOWNLOAD
WD Launches New RE3 SATA Enterprise Hard Drives
Addressing the growing enterprise market for highly reliable high-capacity storage, WD today announced it is now shipping the new WD RE3 SATA hard drives, the company's latest generation of "RE" family drives. As data centers become larger and more complex, WD's third-generation high capacity enterprise SATA hard drives enhance vibration and shock tolerance and deploy new electronics to increase performance approximately 20 percent and by as much 60 percent in high-vibration environments.
Thursday, June 19th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
Multimedia
Speakers
MSI R4850 Radeon HD 4850 512 MB Review
After some confusion, AMD has lifted the NDA for their brand-new Radeon HD 4850 Series today. The RV770 on these boards comes with 800 shaders and boasts 956 million transistors. Together with a new AA architecture the card takes the $200 segment in a storm offering leading performance/dollar and performance/watt.
PowerColor Radeon HD 4850 512 MB Review
AMD has moved the launch date of the HD 4850 forward, launching it today. The cards are positioned in the $200 range and offer several new features and performance improvements. According to our benchmark results AMD has found a winner with this card that offers excellent price/performance and energy efficiency.
A-DATA 32GB Speedy Compact Flash Review
A-DATA is one of the few companies, which offer 32 GB Compact Flash cards. We take a look at the unit and also give it a go as a hard drive, as it certainly has the size for such a scenario.
NVIDIA Gently Intros GeForce 9800 GTX+
AMD today took a major point for the red team by positioning its brand new ATI Radeon HD 4850 cards between NVIDIA's GeForce 9 series and GTX 200 series cards. The all new HD 4850 cards beat NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GTX while also maintaining the very reasonable MSRP of $199. Currently NVIDIA has no card that can compete in this category, but that's eventually going to change in mid-July, when the company will announce a new mid-range video card dubbed GeForce 9800 GTX+. The card will be idential to GeForce 9800 GTX from the outside, but from the "inside" it will use a smaller and more efficient 55 nanometer GPU with increased default clock/shader speeds: from 675MHz to 738MHz and from 1688MHz to 1836MHz respectively. Memory speeds for this card will be dropped slightly to 1GHz (1100MHz for GeForce 9800 GTX). Other than that the card is virtually the same as GeForce 9800 GTX, the three-way SLI support also remains untouched. NVIDIA expects to start offering GeForce 9800 GTX+ with a MSRP of $229. The company also plans to drop the price of the 65nm GeForce 9800 GTX to $199.
First card is Leadtek 9800GTX, second one is GeForce 9800 GTX+
First card is Leadtek 9800GTX, second one is GeForce 9800 GTX+
AMD HD 4850 launched
As of 3PM CET the NDA for the Radeon HD 4850 Series has been lifted. Since this came as a surprise to everyone our reviews are not finished yet now finished.
MSI HD 4850 | PowerColor HD 4850
MSI HD 4850 | PowerColor HD 4850
AMD launches Radeon HD 48xx Series Today
I just received an E-Mail from AMD stating that some RV770 info can be posted today:
Effective 9:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 19th, AMD will be lifting the embargo preventing the publishing of ATI Radeon HD 4850 performance previews. These performance previews may include ATI Radeon HD 4850 benchmarks, photos of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 hardware, information printed on related packaging or photos of the packaging itself and related pricing information.
Firefox 3 Downloaded Over 8 Million Times In One Day
The latest version of the very popular Mozilla Firefox browser was downloaded 8,349,074 times between 2:16 p.m. ET Tuesday and 2:16 p.m. ET Wednesday. By comparison Firefox 2 was downloaded only 1.6 million times in the first 24 hours of its release. As part of the initial release, Mozilla hoped to break the Guinness World record for the most software download in 24 hours. However, since as of yet this type of record does not exist, the decision is really whether Guinness believes the event is worthy of being included. Because of interest in the browser Mozilla's servers were crippled on Tuesday postponing the US release by roughly two hours, while the European release was delayed an hour.
Wednesday, June 18th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Multimedia
Storage
Yuin OK3 Earphones Review
Yuin OK3 is the budget version of the new OK-series earphones coming from Yuin. The OK3s have the same design as its two bigger brothers and feature the exact same exterior design. This little Yuin is made for the more budget minded critical listeners with a price of only $89.
CoolIT Systems Announces VGA Cooler for the NVIDIA GTX280
CoolIT Systems announces the availability of the NV200 VGA Coldplate compatible with the new GeForce GTX280 and GTX260 cards recently announced by NVidia. The solution features a single slot, high performance liquid cooling solution that effectively cools the GPU, RAM, nVio Chip and VR that, when mated with CoolIT's award-winning liquid cooling technology, provides extreme cooling to achieve optimal performance for the GTX280 in single card or SLI setup.
Tuesday, June 17th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
ATI Believes GeForce GTX 200 Will be NVIDIA's Last Monolithic GPU.
The head of ATI Technologies claims that the recently introduced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 GPU will be the last monolithic "megachip" because they are simply too expensive to manufacture. The statement was made after NVIDIA executives vowed to keep producing large single chip GPUs. The size of the G200 GPU is about 600mm2¬¬ which means only about 97 can fit on a 300mm wafer costing thousands of dollars. Earlier this year NVIDIA's chief scientist said that AMD is unable to develop a large monolithic graphics processor due to lack of resources. However, Mr. Bergman said that smaller chips allow easier adoption of them for mobile computers.
Mozilla Firefox 3 Final Ready for Download
As expected, Mozilla's Firefox 3 web browser was made available for download today. After 34 months in development the final version of the popular web browser is finally available for everyone. Click here to download Firefox 3 Final for Windows, MacOS or Linux in over 40 different languages. Also don't forget that Mozilla is aiming to break the download per day Guinness World Record with their "Download Day" initiative.
Intel Announces Floating Body Cell Memory.
Intel announced today that it has made scaled Floating Body Cell (FBC) memory with its High-k and Metal Gate 45nm technology that could mean a new era of super dense cache cells in CPUs and other applications. FBC memory will allow three to four times greater memory density than standard SRAM cache. FBC uses just one capacitor while SRAM uses six transistors further decreasing the needed size. The FBC is on a single 45nm Metal Gate on a thin 22nm, ultra low voltage Silicon On Insulator (SOI) substrate. The device is two generations ahead of the one Intel showcased in 2006.
AMD Rumored to be Developing Intel Atom Competitor
AMD is possibly developing a low-power processor to compete with Intel's "Atom" in the emerging Mobile Internet Device (MID) market. The new processor to counter the Atom will be a low-power AMD64-based design according to leaked slides obtained by Hexus. The processor will feature an integrated memory controller, 16-lane 800MHz HyperTransport link, 256KB of L2 cache, and a 1GHz core clock. The new rumored processor with its integrated northbridge and memory controller is expected to have a TDP of 8W compared to the 1.6GHz Atom N270's 6.5W TDP (2.5 W for the processor and 4W for the Northbridge).
Age of Conan Set for Fast Expansion
Funcom the developer of the highly popular new MMO Age of Conan has stated that it will begin producing additional content to enhance the game experience. Anyone who has played the game or read about it has surely noticed that the game map covers a much larger area than players have access to. Funcom has promised to unlock the entire world throughout the summer. New areas will be opened; however, existing areas will also get new content. Already announced are a brand new dungeon in Aquilonia, a redesign of three dungeons in Stygia, and a complete mountain range in Cimmeria. New game play styles will also be added, such as a PvP Evolved - to the death mode. To-the-death brings more ranks and rewards to the PvP setting and adds a Fugitive system, which is a controlling method for high-level gamers that are killing lower level players. There is also Guild Alliance Warfare. This allows players in guilds to join alliances.
Napkin PC Wins Microsoft’s PC Design Competition
We are all aware of the cliché of scientists, engineers, and nerds drawing elaborate sketches of their ideas on restaurant napkins. Well one such enterprising engineer has decided to thrust this cliché into the 21st century. Avery Holleman's napkin PC concept, which focuses on collaboration and data sharing within its own network, has won this year's Microsoft Next-Gen PC Design Competition. The design of the Napkin PC in fact does resemble the design of a Napkin holder. It features multiple touchscreen devices networked together. Digital pens allow users to draw on the screens just like they would a napkin.
"I had an idea about a system where the user would be able to interact with any number of interfaces connected to the same network, Holleman said. "I felt I had good ideas. But they needed a package."
While contemplating a square he had drawn out as the display for the device Holleman realized it looked just like a napkin. The judges also seemed to like the idea, giving Holleman first prize as well as the Chairman's Award and 20,000 USD in Cash.
"I had an idea about a system where the user would be able to interact with any number of interfaces connected to the same network, Holleman said. "I felt I had good ideas. But they needed a package."
While contemplating a square he had drawn out as the display for the device Holleman realized it looked just like a napkin. The judges also seemed to like the idea, giving Holleman first prize as well as the Chairman's Award and 20,000 USD in Cash.
Monday, June 16th 2008
Today's Reviews
Graphics Cards
Harddisks
Motherboards
Processors
PSUs
Point of View GeForce GTX 280 Assassin's Creed Edition Review
NVIDIA's new GTX 280 graphics cards have just been released. Point of View's GeForce GTX 280 is an implementation of the NVIDIA reference design. The GTX 280 offers amazing performance improvements and can even beat the GeForce 9800 GX2. But performance comes at a cost, at $649 you need a fat wallet to be able to afford this card.
Zotac GeForce GTX 280 Amp! Edition Review
Today NVIDIA launches their new GTX 280 graphics cards. Zotac as one of NVIDIA's premier partners has engineered a factory overclocked version of the GTX 280 which offers additional performance. Overall the Zotac GTX 280 Amp Edition is the fastest graphics card on the planet today, but also the most expensive.
Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic
Not everyone uses the internet for the same purposes. Some simply check their e-mail and/or scan the news for the latest headlines and promptly log off, while others download gigabytes of data every day, if not every hour. For years the internet was an egalitarian service with both types of users paying an equal amount despite the amount of bandwidth they used. Now it seems the major ISPs are preparing to implement some form of bandwidth limiting for users that utilize the most. Earlier this month Time Warner cable began a trial program of "Internet metering" in one Texas city. Customer will be asked to select a monthly plan with a certain amount of allotted bandwidth. When a user exceeds the bandwidth of their plan he or she will be forced to pay a surcharge, similar to exceeding the allotted minutes of a cell phone plan. The same week Time Warner announced its plan Comcast announced that it will be expanding its plan to manage Internet traffic, which involves slowing down the connections of the heaviest bandwidth users. While, as of yet, AT&T places no restrictions on bandwidth they stated that limits on heavy use were inevitable and are considering pricing based on data volume. The three companies insist these forms of billing will insure fair access to the internet for all users. Critics of the bandwidth limits say that metering and capping network used could hold back the inevitable convergence of television, computers, and the Internet. Internet metering could have serious consequences for companies such as Blockbuster and Netflix who are providing more and more downloadable/streaming content.
PC Sales Projections Are Better Than Expected
Data research firms Gartner and IDC are pleased to announce that PC sales are better than expected and have revised their previous estimates for 2008 worldwide PC shipments . It seems the aticipated economic slowdown has not been as bad as they originally anticipated. In March IDC predicted that worldwide PC shipments would grow by 12.8 percent, but now forsees growth increasing by 15.2 percent. While Gartner now believes sales will increse by 12.5 percent, up from their March prediction of 10.9 percent. According to IDC portable PC sales are growing much faster than desktops, with portable sales expected to increase by 23.6 percent this year while desktop sales drop 2.8 percent. By 2012, annual worldwide laptop sales are expected to almost triple compared with 2006.
Auzentech Preps HDMI 1.3 PCI Express Audio Combo Card
Auzentech revealed today its non-downsampling, HDMI 1.3-native, PCI express audio combo card: Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1. The Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 accepts video from either an internal or external connection, mixes it with digital audio, and outputs the combined video and lossless multichannel audio via a single HDMI 1.3 port. Moreover, the internal connection will exclusively support upcoming NVIDIA products, to create the ultimate in audio and visual entertainment.
Cooler Master Unveils the Silent Pro M Series Power Supply Units
Cooler Master today announced a new range of power supplies dubbed Silent Pro M. Here are some of the features you can expect to see in the new powerful single rail Silent Pro M PSUs:
- single rail 12V rail (up to 50A)
- Modularized cable design to eliminate clutter and improve airflow inside the chassis
- Two 6+2 pin PCI-e connectors for multiple graphic card set up
- Energy efficient design that meats 80 Plus requirements
- Compliant with Intel standard Intel ATX12V V2.3 & SSI EPS 12V V2.91
- Green power design that meets energy star, blue angel requirements
- Super silent operation with intelligent 135mm fan speed control
- Copper + aluminum heat sink design which results in more efficient heat transfer and dissipation.
- Flat cable design for easier cable arrangement
- Japanese-made capacitors
- Unique silicon pad provided with the PSU's package
EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Line-up Unveiled
Expect nothing but NVIDIA all over the place today. After BFG it's EVGA's turn with six more GeForce GTX 280 cards. Some of them come overclocked, some are even watercooled.
BFG Launches Overclocked GeForce GTX 280/260 Cards
BFG Technologies, the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC and the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC graphics cards. With 240 processing cores and 1GB of frame buffer memory, the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC delivers an average performance improvement that is one and a half times better than high-end GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 series single-GPU graphics cards.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 and GeForce GTX 280 Announced
NVIDIA, the leader in visual computing technologies, today introduced its new family of GeForce GTX 200 graphics processors (GPUs) - which includes the GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs - taking graphics beyond gaming and gaming beyond anything that's ever been possible before on a consumer computing platform.
AMD FireStream 9250 Breaks the 1 Teraflop Barrier
At the International Supercomputing Conference, AMD today introduced its next-generation stream processor, the AMD FireStream 9250, specifically designed to accelerate critical algorithms in high-performance computing (HPC), mainstream and consumer applications. Leveraging the GPU design expertise of AMD's Graphics Product Group, AMD FireStream 9250 breaks the one teraflop barrier for single precision performance. It occupies a single PCI slot, for unmatched density and with power consumption of less than 150 watts, the AMD FireStream 9250 delivers an unprecedented rate of performance per watt efficiency with up to eight gigaflops per watt.
Saturday, June 14th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Graphics Cards
Motherboards
QNAP TS-409 Pro Turbostation Review
QNAP already added nearly every thinkable feature to their NAS firmwares. To make a new series innovation had to be found elsewhere. QNAP decided to double the capacity in their TS-409 Pro and add features to utilize this space. The four disks that the TS-409 Pro houses can therefore be put in any RAID level including 6. Besides adding RAID 5 and 6 support QNAP shows they take their RAID arrays seriously by adding support for online expansion and RAID migration. Combined with the already proven ease of use and list of software features the TS-409 Pro Turbostation promises to be a solid product.
Toshiba Preps Qosmio X305 17-inch Gaming Laptop for Launch Next Month
Following all other brands that offer gaming laptops Toshiba has decided to join too, starting with Qosmio X305 - a 17-inch gaming station on the go. A quick sneak peak at some of the specs indicates Intel's still to be officially released Centrino 2 platform that includes a 3GHz dual core processor and up to 4GB of high-speed DDR3 RAM. Other specs of the laptop include a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX with turbo cache VRAM, dual 200GB high-speed 7200 rpm hard drives for a total of 400GB and a 17-inch WSXGA+ display with 1680x1050 resolution. The Qosmio X305 also packs Harmon Kardon stereo system with 4 speakers and a subwoofer. The Toshiba Qosmio X305 is expected to be launched on July 14th.
ASUS Unveils World's Slimmest 22-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor
ASUS on Friday unveiled a new ultra-slim 22" widescreen LCD monitor. Claimed to be the world's slimmest 22-inch display with a thikness of just 24.8 millimeters, the LS221H delivers a 2ms response time (gray-to-gray), a dynamic contrast ration of 4000:1 ASCR (ASUS Smart Contrast Ratio), 300nits brightness and 170°(H)/160°(V) wide viewing angles. A little something unusual, the LS221H comes only with D-SUB and HDMI inputs in exchange for DVI-D. Set to start selling soon, the ASUS LS221H will be backed by a 3-year system and panel warranty and a 1-year zero bright dot warranty.
OCZ Diesel USB 2.0 Flash Drive - a Portable Option for Students and Professionals
OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the all-new Diesel USB 2.0 Flash drive that made waves at Computex earlier this month. OCZ's latest offering harnesses a sleek and compact design coupled with high capacities you wouldn't expect in such a small form factor. With reliability, affordability, and maximum storage capabilities, the OCZ Diesel is the affordable choice for students, professionals, and other on-the-go computer users.
LG Flatron W2252TE - the World's Most Energy-efficient 22-inch Monitor
Electronics company LG has announced the launch of Flatron W2252TE, the world's most energy-efficient monitor. 22-inch in size, the widescreen W2252TE claims to offer a 45% reduction in power consumption, saving around 40 watts compared to other monitors that share the same size. The screen has a wide native resolution of 1680x1050, 2ms response time, a 170° viewing angle, a brightness rated at 250cdm² and a contrast ratio of 10,000:1. "The W2252TE gives consumers the chance to work, play games, watch movies or surf the internet, safe in the knowledge that they are doing as much as possible to help reduce their impact on the environment" Fiona Landsberg, marketing manager of LG Electronics says. The LG Flatron W2252TE is expected to be available in the UK first, starting from August 2008. Pricing information is unavailable.
Intel Preparing Low-cost Core 2 Quad Q8200 Processor
Latest report from DigiTimes brings us a word of new Core 2 Quad Q8000 series processors.
Intel is planning to launch a Core 2 Quad Q8000 CPU series, offering entry-level prices to counter AMD's triple-core CPUs in the mainstream market, according to sources at motherboard makers. Intel will launch the Core 2 Quad Q8200 in the third quarter this year, supporting FSB up to 1333MHz, L2 cache of 4MB and a core frequency of 2.33GHz. Pricing will be set around US$203 in thousand-unit quantities. In order to separate the Q8000 series from Intel's Q9000 CPU family, the Q8000 CPU series will not support Intel's VT and TXT technology.
Friday, June 13th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Cooling
Motherboards
Silverstone Temjin TJ07B Review
The Silverstone TJ07 has been on the market for quite some time, but still impresses every time you lay eyes on it. This is the reason you will see the case at every show, always filled with the latest and greatest in hardware. That is certainly enough reason for us to take a close look at the TJ07.
AMD Intros ATI Radeon HD 3870 for Mac
AMD today announced the new ATI Radeon HD 3870 for Mac & PC Edition, delivering the power to go beyond high-definition visual computing for work and play. Optimized exclusively for Apple Mac Pro systems, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC edition can help drive productivity with built-in 256-bit 512MB GDDR4 frame buffer memory and 320 stream processors to deliver maximum performance for graphics-intensive applications such as 3D modeling, animation and games. Users also can expand visual workspace using twin dual-link DVI ports to connect two 30" Apple Cinema HD displays.
Thursday, June 12th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Harddisks
Motherboards
Computex 2008: Girls Review
This year's Computex was full of pretty asian booth babes fighting for your attention. Just like on previous tradeshows we set a day apart to chase down all the sweet girls for you. In total we have over 150 pictures with full-res images available for your viewing pleasure.
Sapphire HD3870 X2 Atomic Watercooled Review
Sapphire HD 3870 X2 Atomic Edition comes with pre-filled, pre-sealed and maintenance free watercooling. This allows Sapphire to ship the card with higher clocks, making the card the fastest HD 3870 X2 on the market today. As you would expect from such a premium product the presentation is outstanding, and so is the price.
Kingston Releases High-Performance HyperX 800MHz SO-DIMMs
HyperX memory manufacturer Kingston is expanding its high-performance laptop memory line-up with a new set of DDR2-800 SO-DIMMs accessible in 2GB and 4GB kits. The latest offerings are backed by a lifetime warranty and have suggested price tags of $88 and $138 respectively.
- KHX6400S2LLK2/2G - 2GB 800MHz Low-Latency DDR2 (CL5-5-5-18 @ 1.8v) SO-DIMMs, kit of 2
- KHX6400S2LLK2/4G - 4GB 800MHz Low-Latency DDR2 (CL5-5-5-18 @ 1.8v) SO-DIMMs, kit of 2
3-way SLI Action with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 and 3DMark Vantage
A little joy for today, one week before the official announcement of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 cards. Here's a little sneak peak on what to expect from three NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 cards in tri-SLI configuration, an overclocked Intel QX9650 processor to 4GHz and the 3DMark Vantage Vista DX10 benchmark. Clock speeds of all three cards can be seen in the photo. The end result is 21350 marks.
Intel Dispelling the USB 3.0 Myths
Contrary to our previous article here, Intel today informed that it will make the USB 3.0 specification freely available for anyone during the second half of this year. The specification will be made available under a contract that doesn't require royalty payments.
USB 3.0 is not an Intel specification; it is being developed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group (HP, Intel, MSFT, NEC, NXP, and TI). The USB 3.0 Promoters issued a call for contributors in November 2007 and since then the USB 3.0 Promoter Group has been joined by over 180 USB 3.0 Contributor companies (Including other chipset makers such as AMD and Nvidia) who are helping to finalize the USB 3.0 specification. This spec is expected to be made publicly available by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group along with an adopter agreement early in the second half of 2008. (Very soon), posted today Nick Knupffer in the official Technology@Intel blog.
ZOTAC Extends Warranty of Graphics Cards Sold in Australia to 5 Years
ZOTAC has one more announcement to make. As of today, the comapny extends the warranty for Australian customers. The new warranty provides customers with an additional 3 years of warranty, for a total 5-year warranty on ZOTAC graphics cards. "Our new extended warranty in Australia shows our dedication and confidence in our products," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. The extended warranty insures all ZOTAC graphics cards sold in Australia are free of defects or operational failure within the first 5-years of ownership. The ZOTAC extended warranty applies to all ZOTAC graphics cards purchased after June 11, 2008 and require users to register the product to validate the warranty.
Zotac Unleashes Water-Cooled GeForce 9800 GTX Graphics Card
ZOTAC International, an award-winning NVIDIA AIC, today unleashes its liquid-cooled, near-silent single GPU graphics card - the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition is the staple of quiet computing, delivering the power of NVIDIA GeForce 9 series graphics power with PureVideo HD video processing technology into a virtually silent graphics card. Cooled by a custom water-cooling system, the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition delivers high-performance in DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 titles while keeping thermal and noise levels to a minimum.
PCI SIG Unveils More PCI-Express 3.0 Details
Al Yanes, chairman of the PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) shared on Wednesday some additional details of the next generation PCI-Express 3.0 standard. The PCI-E 3.0 specification will almost double the transfer speed of PCI-E 2.0 at 8GT/s (gigatransfers per second). The good news is that PCI-Express 3.0 will be backwards-compatible with PCI Express 2.0. Since the connector will remain the same, the only difference should be in the electrical specifications. The final specs for the PCI-E 3.0 standard are expeted to be completed in late 2009, while testing is set to start in the second half of 2010. First products that will utilize the new slot will start surfacing some time after that.
Mozilla Firefox 3 RC3 Released
Mozilla announced Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3 on Wednesday, June 11, 2008. The third Firefox 3 Release Candidate contains a single change for Mac OS X users only; there is no change for users running previous Firefox Release Candidate versions on Windows or Linux. You can find out more about the new Features of Firefox 3 in the "What's New" section of the release notes. For any one who wishes to download the web browser in any of the 45 different languages on hand, please click here.
CoolIT Systems Develops Liquid Cooling for Intel’s Skull Trail Motherboard
CoolIT Systems announces its new "ST" line of liquid cooling solutions designed specifically to work with Intel's D5400XS motherboard (formerly codenamed Skull Trail). The lineup consists of the Boreas MTEC Chassis ST and PURE ST both of which provide maintenance-free, aggressive cooling power to both CPUs and Chipset, reduce noise, and enhance system reliability. The PURE ST easily fits into any chassis with a 120mm fan mount and efficiently cools both CPUs and the chipset with near silent operation. The Boreas MTEC Chassis ST combines CoolIT's most powerful MTEC technology in the Boreas with the well renowned Silverstone TJ07 chassis to create the ideal barebones kit for the most avid PC enthusiast to the experienced professional content creator. Both the Boreas MTEC Chassis ST and PURE ST are available from multiple distributors and online etailers, with street prices expected to be $899 and $269 respectively. "CoolIT's new ST lineup will enable PC Enthusiasts to fully maximize the performance of Intel's new Skull Trail platform technology" said Geoff Lyon, CEO of CoolIT Systems. " We've worked closelywith Intel to develop this customized Skull Trail liquid cooling solution and the end result will excite PC Enthusiasts and Gamers world-wide ."
AMD and Havok to Optimize Physics for Gaming
AMD and Havok today announced plans to jointly investigate the optimization of physics effects utilizing AMD's full line of products. With over 100 developers and 300 leading titles already using Havok's physics engine - Havok Physics - the company has clearly defined its position as the leading developer of game physics. By working together, both companies are demonstrating their commitment to open standards and continued support for the needs of the game community.
Wednesday, June 11th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Harddisks
Motherboards
Processors
Storage
Palit GeForce 9800 GTX 512 MB Review
Palit's GeForce 9800 GTX follows the specifications of the NVIDIA reference design to the letter. Even then it is one of the fastest cards out there that you can buy, constantly delivering excellent FPS in games. Our sample allowed up to 16% additional overclocking on the GPU for a final clock speed of 784 MHz.
OCZ Expands its Diverse Flash Lineup with the new Ultra-Portable Spyder USB Drive
OCZ Technology Group today announced the latest addition to its award-winning lineup of performance flash drives with the all-new Spyder, first debuted at Computex 2008. Undertaking exciting new endeavors in the flash memory market, OCZ is all about affordable, portable, and innovative style with this super-sleek and cap-less design that offers students and professionals highly reliable and high-capacity flash storage at an aggressive price point.
Computex 2008: Spire
Spire is showing off a few new cases at the show. The first we have seen in form of a prototype, which was not on public display at CeBIT. It has now been announced. The "Emerald" as it is called, features a metal look and a small "roll" at the top of the case, which holds the front I/O on one side and power/reset on the other side. The second case is aimed at gamers with a "S" theme on an aluminum shield up front. The bottom light up once turned on. Their new hard drive enclosures called "HandyBook" are also ready for retail. Installing a hard drive is incredibly easy, simply open the door, put the drive in place and close it. The units is available for 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA drives. You will also find two new GPU coolers. Both of which may look similar to some others on the market. The smaller one is intended for mainstream and low-end graphic cards, while the larger Coolforce III to the left can be used for higher end GPUs of the Geforce 6800, 7800, 7900 & 8800 series.
AMD Receives Next-Generation OpenGL ES 2.0 Graphics Technology Certification
AMD today announced that it has reached a new milestone in the mobile graphics industry as the first 3D graphics technology provider to achieve OpenGL ES 2.0 conformance certification. AMD OpenGL ES 2.0 mobile graphics technology, which will be included in AMD processors, is based on the same AMD Unified Shader Architecture powering the Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console.
ASUS ROG Maximus II Formula Intel P45 Motherboard Announced
Catering to gamers who want to enjoy the ultimate in gaming experiences, ASUS, world leader in motherboard production, has released the new ASUS ROG Maximus II Formula series motherboard. Equipped with an Intel P45 chipset and supporting DDRII memory, this cutting-edge piece of hardware provides exceptional gaming performances to suit gamers of today.
Toshiba Expands 1.8-inch HDD Line with New 160GB 5400 rpm SATA HDDs
Toshiba's Storage Device Division (SDD) launched today the industry's highest-capacity 160GB Serial ATA (1.5Gb/s) 1.8-inch HDDs. The new 5400 rpm hard drives come in single-platter 80GB (MK8017GAS) and dual-platter 160GB (MK1617GSG) models, delivering market-leading capacity, high-performance and compact size for space-efficient mobile PC systems. Toshiba's new 80GB and 160GB HDDs will ship to PC manufacturers and distribution partners in August 2008.
Computex 2008: Cool IT Systems Single Bay MTEC Cooler
Cool IT Systems also has a booth at the Hyatt and is showing off their new single slot cooler for graphic cards. It uses just a single 5.25 inch drive bay and can cool either a single graphic card or a CPU. The general layout and built is identical to the two-bay variant. Cool IT also has coolers for the new GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA ready to roll, as soon as the cards hit the market. These are just being fine tuned, so we are not yet able to show you pictures of the MTEC and heatsink. Expect to see them in combination with the drive bay units in the near future.
Computex 2008: DisplayLink
DisplayLink has a suite at the Hyatt, just like last year. A lot has happened in the last year and they are showing off a few very interesting demos. The first are two identical Dell office PCs, one with a entry level dual monitor capable graphic card (left) and the same unit with onboard graphics in combination with a DisplayLink USB to DVI unit (left). The same tasks are performed on both systems and the DisplayLink equipped PC uses almost half as much power as the one with the Radeon HD2400 GPU. The much talked about wireless USB version is now also ready 2 go. A Dell notebook is used in combination to the sending unit and the receiving adapter to wirelessly send the needed data to the screen to show a high-resolution movie.
But wait, there is more! Hit the "Read full story" link...
Computex 2008: AMD showcases Core 2 Duo T9600 notebook at Computex
AMD tried to pull a fast one and is showing off an unmarked ASUS notebook running an Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 at their booth. Why? Because it has the Radeon HD3850 X2. They have removed all stickers on the notebook itself, which has been placed on a desk in front of other AMD based systems. We opened up 3DMark06 when no one was looking and it reveals the Intel CPU. I guess AMD could not get a notebook with their own chipset in combination with the new high-end mobile GPU in time for the show.
Computex 2008: HIS USB Graphic card & HDMI equipped Radeon HD2400
HIS is showing off a few new products at the show. The first is a USB to DVI graphics adapter. This unit uses the DisplayLink technology to enable output from a USB connector to a DVI monitor. The units are connected to a notebook. The second item is a Radon HD2400 low-profile graphic card with built-in HDMI support. It comes with 512MB of DDR2 memory and active cooling. Such a unit should be great for a HTPC.
Computex 2008: PQI
PQI is showing off a set of water-proof USB flash devices. All of which are suspended in aquariums. These units come with up to 8GB and in various colors. The images show the Intelligent Drive i810 Plus, i818 and i828. PQI is also one of the first to offer a 32GB 300x Compact Flash card. You will also find some unique flash drives which come in combination with eSATA connectivity. This should give you better transfer rates and allow for use as a traditional hard drive instead of a removable storage medium.
Hit the "Read full story" link for a look at their DDR2 and DDR3 memory
Tuesday, June 10th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Motherboards
Mousepads
Multimedia
Yuin OK2 Earphones Review
Yuin OK2 is the name of the second best earphone from the Chinese brand Yuin. Unlike their bigger brother these earphones are easy to drive, and are also optimized for use with a normal modern DAP. The OK2s can function both as normal earbuds and as in-ears which makes them quite unique.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 Available for Pre-order in Europe
A week ahead of its release date, NVIDIA's next generation flagman the GeForce GTX 280 1GB is already starting to appear on various European etailers. Both the French TDShop.fr and the German HW ELEKTRONIK are now offering the card for roughly 590 Euro ($912). I sincerely hope the price will drop after the cards are out.
Apple Quick Time Player Version 7.5 Released
Quick Time users may now update their current player version to the latest 7.5 release. The update supposedly adds performance enhancements and addresses security issues dealing with the way QT handles PICT files, AAC-encoded media, URLs and Indeo video. More information can be found on the Apple web site. Download Apple Quick Time 7.5 for Windows XP or Vista here.
ASUS Launches VW223B and VW202B EzLink LCD Monitors
ASUS recently announced the worldwide availability of ASUS EzLink Displays that will include the new ASUS VW223B and VW202B LCD monitors. This new series will allow users to transfer digital video signals from a PC to one or more LCD monitors via a USB 2.0 interface - providing great flexibility for multi-screen applications.
NZXT Khaos Full Tower Gaming Chassis Unveiled
California-based chassis manufacturer NZXT is debuting a flashy new full tower PC gaming chassis by the name of Khaos. Priced at around $400 the Khaos is said to bring "breakthrough design in every category". Measuring 225 (W) x 612 (H) x 597 (D) mm, the new case is made out of aluminum (2mm and 3mm) and weights in 15.7 kg. Inside the case there are two 120 mm fans for intake, there's also place for over 8 HDDs and a three 120mm fan bracket placed exactly before the video card and the motherboard. But wait, there's place for more. One 120mm can be mounted at the back, and an additional 140mm fan spins at the top of the case. The Khaos chassis can also accommodate two bottom mounted power supplies. 5.25-inch bays for optical drives and other temp/LCD gadgets are 11 in number. What is more, Khaos comes standard with mounted rubber finished wheels, a handle mounted at the back for comfort during movement and removable motherboard tray. The chassis will be available later this month.
Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Public Beta Released
Last month we brought information about the first Power Pack for Windows Home Server OS. Today, Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Release Candidate for public beta testing. Again, this pack should fix the data corruption errors (KB #946676) with Windows Home Server that have plagued the OS since its release. Additional list of known issues are available on the Windows Home Server forums. Download the Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 RC from Microsoft Connect (registration is required).
Note: In an email sent to all beta testers Microsoft suggests that even with the public Power Pack 1 RC installed, users should back up all their files just in case "something happens".
Note: In an email sent to all beta testers Microsoft suggests that even with the public Power Pack 1 RC installed, users should back up all their files just in case "something happens".
HP Brings Voodoo Omen Desktop and Voodoo Envy 133 Laptop to Life
During its Connecting Your World event, HP also unveiled a new portfolio of Voodoo-branded computing devices targeted at the growing segment of consumers who demand products that combine luxurious quality, personalized styling and unmatched technology innovation. The first two models in the portfolio include the powerful Voodoo Omen desktop and the ultra-mobile Voodoo Envy 133 notebook.
HP's 24-inch DreamColor LP2480ZX LCD Can Display More Than 1 Billion Colors
HP has just announced its new color-loving 24-inch computer professional display, the DreamColor LP2480ZX. Proud to be the world's first to provide more than 1 billion colors in a 30-bit LED-backlit display, HP's latest work of art delivers more than 64 times the colors available on today's mainstream LCDs. The display is result of a collaboration with DreamWorks Animation SKG and addresses the need for affordable and consistent color accuracy in the animation, game development, film/video post, broadcast, product design and graphic arts segments. Moreover, the LP2480zx has native widescreen resolution of 1920x1200. HP also claims that the display's white luminance range is from 40cd/m2 up to 250cd/m2. The contrast ratio is 1000:1, the response time: 12ms black-to-white or 6ms gray-to-gray. Inputs include two DVI-I, one DisplayPort 1.1, one HDMI 1.3, one component (YPbPr), one S-Video, and one Composite. The display is also HDCP compliant. The new LP2480xz can already be found on the market for the reasonable price of $3,499.
WD Delivers New High-Performance 3.5-inch Caviar Black 750GB and 1TB Hard Drives
WD today launched its new line of WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM 3.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives for high-performance desktop, workstation and multi-drive systems. Available in capacities of 750GB and 1TB, WD Caviar Black hard drives are part of a new family of WD product categories designed to simplify the buying experience for customers worldwide.
HP Goes Mad, Launches 16 New Laptops
HP today marked the broadest and most innovative notebook rollout in its history with the introduction of 16 new models designed with new materials and software features that enrich the user experience. Unveiled at its Connecting Your World event, the newly redesigned notebook families are available in an array of sizes and configurations - including the all-new HP EliteBook premium series - providing a broad selection of mobile computing options to meet the personal style and performance needs of most anyone.
Computex 2008: Thermaltake
Thermaltake is one of the companies always showing a lot of new stuff at shows. Let's start with their coolers. The first, very interesting looking unit is the "Rotation", which uses a radial fan in the center, with some heatpipes to cool the CPU. The second looks much like a butterfly is called the "TMG IA1" and uses 8 heatpipes in combination with a 120 mm fan. The two new graphic card coolers. The first is called the "SOrb" and comes with active cooling, while the second does not seem to be finished yet, as it does not have a name. A budget CPU cooler right next to it is currently simply labeled as "Heatpipe Value Downward Flow".
Hit the "Read full story" link for some more new releases.
Computex 2008: XFX GeForce 8300 & nForce 750a Mainboards
XFX is displaying their version of the GeForce 8300 mainboard for the first time. It comes with a heatpipe cooling unit, dual BIOS and post code display by the rear mainboard connectors. The other interesting item is the 750a, which is for AMD as well. This board boasts two PCIe x16 slots, which can be used in an x8/x8 SLI configuration. It actually has the full compliment of expansion slots, while other board out there have one PCIe x1 slot less, as the space is taken up by onboard components.
Computex 2008: Zalman
Zalman is showcasing two new CPU coolers. The large one is called CNPS9900 and comes with a 120 mm fan, while the smaller CPNS9300 uses a 92 mm fan instead. You will also find two new cases, the GS1000 which comes in silver or black and a unit with built-in water cooling at their booth. Two new power supplies (660W and 770W) which use copper heatsinks and heatpipes to cool the components are also on display.
Monday, June 9th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Keyboards
Motherboards
PSUs
IBM Designed Military Supercomputer Sets New Record
A government computer in New Mexico is the first supercomputer to perform at one petaflop (one thousand trillion calculations per second). Located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory of the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, Roadrunner is twice as fast as IBM Blue Gene system at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, which was until now the fastest computer in the world. The new supercomputer is designed and built by IBM using both traditional computer chips and IBM's Cell Broadband Engine. Roadrunner occupies 6,000 square feet and weighs 500,000 lbs. It is also aiming to take place among the top energy-efficient systems on the official "Green 500" list of supercomputers. Roadrunner will be used primarily to ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. It will also do research into astronomy, energy, human genome science and climate change. Learn more here.
AMD Launches New Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE Server Processors
AMD today introduced four new Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors to help IT managers take a new approach to "scaling up" their datacenter in order to address demanding enterprise-computing environments. Rather than invest in traditionally large and expensive enterprise-class proprietary hardware, the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors empower businesses to affordably and easily scale up a datacenter by moving to servers that can offer enterprise-class functionality at industry-standard pricing.
Intel and Others Form Open Patent Alliance to Advance WiMAX 4G Technology
To accelerate the widespread adoption and deployment of WiMAX technology and products, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Clearwire, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics and Sprint today announced the formation of the Open Patent Alliance (OPA). The OPA will advance a competitive and open intellectual property rights model, thus stimulating a larger WiMAX industry that supports innovation through broader choice and lower equipment and service costs for WiMAX technology, devices and applications globally.
Introducing Google Gmail Labs
Google is inviting Gmail users in the US and UK to participate in the testing of Gmail Labs. Launched today, the latest Google service brings a list of experimental new features that will eventually become part of Gmail. Gmail Labs is available now through the Settings/Labs page of your Gmail box.
The result of this loosely-directed chaos is 13 Labs features, with more on the way. Some of them we've found really useful, like Quick Links, which lets you save searches and any other views in Gmail. Kai and Julie wrote Superstars, which gives you different types of stars. Dave wrote Old Snakey, which lets you play an old school style computer game when you press "&". I'm just going to go out and say it: Old Snakey is probably a bad idea. But Dave wanted to do it, so Dave did it and anyone who uses Gmail can use it. And now you can help decide whether it's a good idea. That's the kind of thing that makes a project fun to work on.
Apple Announces new iPhone Model - the iPhone 3G
We all knew it would happen. Apple just made it official. The new 3G enabled iPhone will hit stores on July 11. The 8GB version will come in a black finish and cost a mere $199, while the 16GB variant will set you back $299 US Dollars. The latter can also be bought in white. Check out the Apple Online Store website for further details. Some notable additions are A-GPS, tri-band 3G support and longer battery life.
Corsair Introduces the 4GB Flash Voyager Mini USB Drive
The Flash Voyager Mini is the newest member of Corsair's Flash Voyager family of pocket USB drives. Utilizing an ergonomic rubberized housing and a cap-less retractable connector plug, the Voyager Mini is 100% water-resistant and shock proof, giving maximum security for all the data carried with the drive. The Flash Voyager Mini is compatibile with all USB 1.1/2.0 ports, comes with 10 year limited warranty and for now is only offered with 4GB of capacity. Find more at Corsair.
HP Blackbird 002 Lands in Select Retail Stores This Summer, Confirms GeForce 9800 GT
HP today announced that the award-winning HP Blackbird 002 will be available in an exclusive configuration at Amazon.com, Newegg.com and select Best Buy, Circuit City, J&R and Micro Center retail stores and online shops this summer.
Computex 2008: ELSA 9800 GT displayed
Even though it has not been announced officially yet by NVIDIA, ELSA has been showing a card at their Computex booth that is labeled as GeForce 9800 GT.
The specs are nothing impressive, 112 shaders, 1 GB GDDR3, 256-bit memory, 630 MHz / 1800 MHz clocks. So basically the card is a rebranded GeForce 8800 GT. There are hints that the 9800 GT will use a shrinked down G92 core @ 55 nm. But then we should see a higher clock, maybe ELSA just wanted to show something interesting...
Computex 2008: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DQ6 - First motherboard with 4x Gigabit Ethernet
As the name suggests, the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DQ6 is based on Intel's new P45 chipset. What makes this board special is that it supports four Gigabit Ethernet ports, with an optional teaming feature. While this feature is only of limited use for desktop users, it becomes interesting when building a powerful office or LAN party server. Also included is a TPM chip which is becoming more and more useful in the business world, and might even make it onto gaming PCs for the use of game copy protection.
Computex 2008: IKONIK Presents their first case and power supply products
IKONIK was formed in February 2008 and at this Computex they are showing their first products.
The highlight is certainly the IKONIK Ra X10 which is an enthusiast class case that will be available in several editions, one including watercooling. It has tons of space with six 5.25" drive bays and ten 3.5" HDD slots.
Sunday, June 8th 2008
Creative Software Modder Daniel_K Gone for Good
Driver modder Daniel Kawakami or better known as Creative's Daniel_K is backing off his deal with providing modded software for all Creative sound cards for free. After receiving second warning mail from Creative threatening him with legal actions, he is finally "gone for good". He has posted a message over at the Creative forums informing everyone for his decission. Leave your thoughts here, and tell us what do you think.
Daniel KawakamiI've received another cease and desist e-mail.
I'm done with Creative, enough is enough.
Don't even bother asking me for the files.
Saturday, June 7th 2008
Today's Reviews
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
Sound Cards
Intel Nehalem to Allow Overclocking
Credible information coming from TG Daily suggest that rumors about Intel preventing users from overclocking their next generation Nehalem platform are false. Instead, Intel is going to promote overclocking with Nehalem. Of course, there will be some challanges related to the integrated DDR3 memory controller used in the Bloomfield processors part of the new platform, but this won't stop Intel from making Nehalem overclockable.
When Nehalem comes to life, you can expect that our usual suspects will have overclocking motherboards ready - and Intel will have overclockable CPUs.Only time will tell, and this time will come as soon as the first Bloomfield 8 core (16 threads) processors and motherboards for them start to surface in Q4'08. Intel is also rumored to be preparing to replace their Skulltrail gaming platform with a new one that will be based on the Nehalem platform.
NVIDIA and AMD Vie with Intel Over USB 3.0
First-tier makers NVIDIA and AMD are dissatisfied with Intel's ownership of the USB 3.0 specification, CNET reported yesterday. The next-generation high-speed USB 3.0 specification is aiming to become standard in 2009. It will be 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and at the same time as widespread as the current USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 will also retain full compatibility with USB 2.0 and presumably USB 1.0. The main investitors behind the USB 3.0 specs include Intel as well as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC, and NXP Semiconductors. "The challenge is that Intel is not...giving the specification to anybody that competes with CPUs and chipsets," said a source close to AMD who is familiar with the dispute. As a result AMD, NVIDIA, VIA Technologies and probably others could be driven to create their own USB 3.0 specification that may lead to a lot of frustration and money lost on development. "We are going to be forced to create a secondary specification ... new open host controller standard for USB 3.0." the AMD source added. "They could spend the time, engineers and money developing their own host controller spec," an Intel source said. "In the past they have chosen to let us do the work and then benefit from the fruit of our labor." Continue reading the full story here.
Friday, June 6th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
Processors
Airlive AirVideo-2000 WiFi Projector Server Review
The AirView-2000 can stream your Windows desktop or favorite video to the device through any normal 54 MBit wireless network. So there are no cables to tie you down and you may walk around freely with your tablet PC or notebook during a presentation or at school & university.
Computex 2008: FOXCONN Shows Quad-PC Gaming Machine Prototype
The Denube Gaming Machine Concept is basically four computers in one case, powered by a single power supply.
Western Digital Working on 20,000 RPM Raptor Drive
Sources close to bit-tech.net and the hard drive industry have revealed information that Western Digital is working on a 20,000 RPM Raptor hard drive to counter SSD drives. Just like the company's latest 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor (300GB, SATA 3Gb/s, 16MB Cache), the 20,000 RPM unit will come in a 2.5-inch form factor with custom 3.5-inch enclosure. Other details are still unknown, since the drive is still in development stage. No release date has been unveiled, too.
Computex 2008: Noctua & Coolink
Noctua and Coolink are sharing a booth once again. Both have new products and prototypes on display. Starting with Noctua, the have various upcoming coolers and fans. The first is the NF-S12B, which will replace the current NF-S12. It features a redesigned blade, which translates into more airflow and pressure at the same noiselevel. The retail version will come with the normal brown fan blades unlike the black of the prototype. The "Sandwich" prototype cooler can hold a 120 mm fan inbetween two arrays of fins, which draw the heat away from 6 mm heatpipes. It is not quite finished yet and the company is working on something special for this cooler, but is tight lipped about any details, to protect itself from "copy cats". Noctua is also working on a new mounting system for their coolers. It will be compatible with any of their units all the way back to 2005 and will be offered as a free or very low cost upgrade to those with the old system.
But wait, there is more!
Computex 2008: Super Talent
Super Talent has two booths at the trade show. One is located in Hall 1 and the other, larger one is in the new NanGang Hall. They are not showing off to many new things, but there are a few noteworthy items. The first group are their three new Pico A, B, C USB flash drives. These are incredibly tiny, go up to 8GB and manage read speeds between 20 to 30 MB/s. On top of that, all of them are water proof. You can also view their new "Master Drive SSD" and the just announced 1.8 inch 120GB SSD drive at their booth.
Computex 2008: AirLive
Airlive has an open booth at Hall 1. They have all their products on display, including the wireless media unit - now called AirMedia-3000 - we covered at CeBIT. It is not quite ready yet, but Airlive is aiming for a pre-holiday launch. Besides that, there is the VoIP-111A, which - as the name entails - enables Voice over IP with a traditional phone. The interesting aspect is the fact, that calls from one such unit to another is free. So instead of paying SkypeOut, simply use the VoIP-111A. Various routers and access points can also be viewed at their booth.
AirLive has a few more items, which are intended for the small business or office space.
Computex 2008: A-DATA
A-DATA is showing off their memory cooling solutions. These have changed slightly in shape and the memory heatspreaders have also been redesigned to fit the additional cooling units better. The memory scales up to 2133 MHz at CL9. As you can see, the heatspreader design is black or grey. The latter will be used from now on to further change the X-Series from the other product groups.
But A-DATA is also presenting their newest flash memory cards and drives at Computex.
AMD Delays ATI Radeon HD 4800 Launch to June 23
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Tom's Hardware has learned that ATI is going to delay the launch of its ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 cards a bit to June 23th. Originally the cards were slated to come on June 18th. The GDDR5 equipped ATI Radeon HD 4870 cards will now launch at the same time as the 4850 512MB GDDR3, but it is unclear whether there'll be enough GDDR5 chips to ship the 4870 in volume right after its official launch. The report also claims that although the cards are delayed, add-in-board companies have them available right now. NVIDIA plans to launch the GeForce GTX 200 series on June 17th. In case there are no more "unexpected" delays, NVIDIA will be first this year to show its GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260 cards, a week later AMD should follow with ATI Radeon HD 4870 GDDR5 and Radeon HD 4850 GDDR3.
Thursday, June 5th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cases
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
Comcast Plans 100Mbit Internet Speed for Customers
Comcast Corporation says it is currently on track to offer speeds of over 100Mbps to 20 percent of its customers by the end of 2008. By the end of 2010, they hope to expand the product to most markets in the United States. Comcast Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Marla Dooner, calls the speed 'very competitive' with Verizon FiOS.
Comast is the United State's second largest ISP and the largest cable television provider. Among cable operators, Comcast has been the most aggressive in deploying a wideband technology known as Docsis 3.0 in response to user demand for high definition video.
Comast is the United State's second largest ISP and the largest cable television provider. Among cable operators, Comcast has been the most aggressive in deploying a wideband technology known as Docsis 3.0 in response to user demand for high definition video.
IBM Cools 3-D Chips with Water
In IBM's labs, tiny rivers of water are cooling computer chips that have circuits and components stacked on top of each other, a design that promises to advance Moore's Law in the next decade and significantly reduce energy consumed by data centers. IBM Researchers, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, demonstrated a prototype that integrates the cooling system into the 3-D chips by piping water directly between each layer in the stack.
VIA Unveils Mini-ITX 2.0: The Mini PC Platform of the Future
VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced a new standard for Mini-ITX boards to ensure an optimized multimedia and computing experience in small form factor desktop PCs.
AMD's New Puma Platform Available Across Entire Toshiba Satellite Lineup
Several hours after AMD announced their new Puma platform, Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD) has stepped up as the first manufacturer to confirm they will be using the Turion X2 Ultra-based technology in their latest Satellite notebooks. Six models in the Satellite range will be offered with AMD Athlon Dual Core QL, Turion Dual Core RM and Turion Ultra ZM processors. These new models include Satellite P300D, Satellite A300D, Satellite M300D, Satellite U400D, Satellite L300D and Satellite L350D series. Toshiba's AMD-powered Satellite series will be available this summer from a variety of major consumer electronics and computer stores nationwide.
ASUS Unveils HDMI-equipped Xonar HDAV1.3 PCI-E Sound Cards
ASUS, a leading name in high quality computer components and solutions, announces the world's first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio/video enhancement combo card - the Xonar HDAV1.3. Capable of outputting uncompressed multichannel high definition audio from Blu-ray movies, the Xonar HDAV 1.3 also enhances video with an onboard Splendid HD processor - providing ultimate multimedia enjoyment.
Intel Fined USD $25.4 Million in South Korea
Chip maker Intel was fined USD $25.4 million (£13m) by the Korea Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday for taking advantage from its dominant position in the microprocessor market against rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The Commission fined Intel because it was offering discounts to Samsung Electronics Co. and Trigem Computer Inc. that were against the Korean antitrust rules. Intel had offered about $37 million in rebates to Samsung and Trigem for over two and a half years on the condition that they wouldn't buy from Advanced Micro, according to commission's statement. Intel said it was very unhappy with the ruling and will further review the South Korean commission's decision. "We are disappointed with the decision. We feel the commission has overlooked or ignored key evidence that demonstrates Intel's business practices have been fair and lawful," Intel's Asia Pacific regional spokesman Nick Jacobs said in a statement. "Once we've had a chance to review the findings in detail it is possible that Intel will request a further review and, if necessary, an appeal which will permit a court to review the case independently." Since 2005, Intel has also been hit by anti-trust cases in the US, Japan and Europe.
Mozilla Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 Ready for Download
Mozilla's second public release candidate of Firefox 3 is now up for download as promised. Coming in over 45 languages, it's waiting for you to dowload it here. You can find out what's new in Firefox 3 RC2 in the release notes.
Wednesday, June 4th 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Sound Cards
Crysis Warhead Game Revealed
Two days ago, Crytek published information that it will no longer patch Crysis for "a good reason". Apparantly the good reason is now believed to be called Crysis Warhead, the second game in the Crysis trilogy. If you try to visit Crytek's home page, a teaser image of Crysis Warhead will appear before the actual page, dropping a hint at what's imminent. No other details, such as platforms or a release date, have been unveiled. It's only an image at the moment, but more information will follow sooner or later.
Sun Microsystems Trumps Competition with New SSD Drives
Sun Microsystems said today it is to remove hard drives from its servers and replace them with brand new SSDs later this year. "Flash SSD is the most exciting innovation to happen to system and storage design in over a decade. By mid-2009, it will be in the majority of servers and deliver more capacity than DRAM and far greater overall system performance and energy efficiency," said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "This technology will completely change how server and storage infrastructure is designed and deployed in enterprise data centers." Sun's SSDs will be optimized for MySQL database and other leading applications. The drives will work with Solaris OS ZFS file system. Sun is expected to deliver Flash-based products to market in the 2HCY08.
Computex 2008: Sapphire
Sapphire also has a suite at the Hyatt hotel. They are showing off the usual ATI graphic cards. You will not see any upcoming models at their suite, as these cards have not yet officially been released. Instead the company is showing off two new areas of business. The first are power supplies. These will be aimed at the mainstream and can handle 625W. The 14 cm fan has either red or white LEDs and the PSU is FireMV and FireGL certified. The second new offering are displays. The first is a 3D capable monitor. which simply has two layers to create the effect with the help of specific "sunglasses". The unit on is 22 inches large, can be used with both ATI and NVIDIA cards and will cost around 600 US Dollars. Another 56 inch display with a massive resolution, intended for industrial and medical applications can also be viewed. It features "quad HD" resolution and will sell in a bundle with FireGL cards.
Computex 2008: OCZ Technology
OCZ is showing off a lot of new products as well. They are now offering gaming memory and power supplies with Fatal1ty branding, with speeds of 1066 MHz at CL5 and 2.2V. The new DDR3 modules with XMP support come with the Core 2 Extreme logo and run at 1600 MHz CL8. On top of that, DDR3 SO-DIMMs are also available in 2GB, 3GB or 4GB kits. Right beside these are new USB flash devices: The Diesel, Spyder and one in a sturdy titanium casing, called Fortress. The latter should be able to take anything you would throw at it in.
OCZ is also presenting their new gaming gear at Computex as well. Hit the link below to find out more.
Computex 2008: G.Skill
G.Skill has three systems up and running. Each of them using a specifc memory product from the company. The first uses their DDR2 16GB kit, which consists of four 4GB DIMMs running at 800 MHz CL6. The second uses actively cooled DDR3 with 2000 MHz at CL8 and 1.9V. G.Skill also offers a passive heatsink instead of the one with the two fans in the image below. The third uses their "Pi" series, which denotes G.Skills new high end memory line-up. The setup on display runs four 2GB DDR2 DIMMs at 1100 MHz with CL5 and 1.8V. The "Pi" series is also available as DDR3. Their SSD offerings, which we mentioned at CeBIT, have also changed a bit. Instead of the traditional sticker, the metal casing now features a clean G.Skill logo.
Computex 2008: NZXT
NZXT has a suite at the Hyatt hotel, instead of a booth at the show grounds. They are showing off their newest cases as well as a gaming mouse. There are two cases which are currently still in the prototype stage, so we cannot show you any images. Besides these two, there are several other enclosures, which are launching soon or right after the show. The following images show new editions of available cases and new mainstream enclosures, expanding the Zero line-up. The Whisper uses sound proofing and has a total of 10 hard drive bays, as well as a front door.
Hit the "Read full story" button for images of their new high-end case and gaming mouse
Intel Says Yes to Overclocking, but No to Warranty of Overclocked Death Chips
During Computex 2008, Intel said that they'll change their strategy when it comes to overclocking and allowing users to squeeze extra performance from their systems. Overclocking capabilities will be the main feature of Intel's 4 series chipsets, said Eric Mentzer, Intel's vice president and general manager of the Graphics Development Group, in an interview at the Computex exhibition in Taipei. "We spend a lot of time working with our motherboard partners to figure out all the hidden bits inside, helping them figure out how to bring the best out of these platforms," Mentzer said. In the past and sometimes even today Intel used to lock down its chips to prevent them from overclocking, and that's exactly the time when terms like "FSB wall" started to mean something. Now the company is focusing to eliminate all the overclocking obstacles for us, but that will come with the cost of the warranty which won't cover death chips that were overclocked. Now comes the perfect time to ask, how is Intel going to know if my motherboard or CPU were overclocked?
AMD Announces Revolutionary External Graphics Solution for Notebooks
Computex 2008, AMD today also launched ATI XGP (External Graphics Platform) Technology, a new external PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 graphics platform, designed to deliver enthusiast-class desktop graphic performance and true multimedia upgradeability to notebooks. ATI XGP is an exclusive technology that capitalizes on PCIe 2.0 to deliver enthusiast-class graphics via a connected cable to an externally powered and cooled device.
AMD Announces ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 Graphics Chip
Computex 2008, AMD today announced the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800, tripling top-of-the line graphics performance in comparison to the previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs. Joining the previously announced ATI Mobility Radeon 3000 family, the new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series offers notebook manufacturers the ability to deliver fast graphics performance, energy-efficient 55nm graphics processor technology, amazing video playback, and, for the first time ever, ATI CrossFireX technology for a mobile graphics solution.
AMD Puma Mobile Platform Unleashed
Computex 2008, AMD today announced the availability of its next-generation notebook platform, delivering the ultimate HD visual performance and increased energy efficiency on the go. The platform features new AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processors with ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series Graphics for superior 3D performance and HD image quality, with industry-leading wireless for greater throughput and range. AMD customers overwhelmingly embrace the new platform, as evidenced by more than double the number of design wins compared to the last major AMD Turion processor introduction. These new notebook designs come from leading OEMs including Acer, Asus, Clevo, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, MSI, NEC and Toshiba.
Tuesday, June 3rd 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
Interview: David Makin / Palit Multimedia Review
In our interview with David Makin from Palit Multimedia we learned about recent US activities of the company and how Palit is working on increasing their market share. Also David talks about his personal background and how he made it into the Industry.
Blu-ray Disc Sales Hit 11 Million Mark
Since Blu-ray is a lone wolf in the high-definition arena, it's time to see some reports that will tell us how well is the format selling. According to data compiled by the Redhill Group for Home Media Magazine, over 11 million Blu-ray discs have been sold since the format launched before two years. Sales have increased fourfold since this time last year, and early sales data for May suggests that more titles have been sold in the first five months of this year than all of last year combined. Current bestselling Blu-ray titles include: "I Am Legend", "3:10 To Yuma", and "No Country for Old Men". Analysts also believe that these numbers will continue to grow in the second half of the year, when blockbuster films like Paramount's "Transformers", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Tinker Bell" hit the market.
Microsoft Further Extends Windows XP Deadline for Low-Cost PCs to 2010
Yesterday during the first day of Computex, Rob Young - a senior director of Microsoft OEM group - said that Microsoft will once more extended the deadline for selling Window XP licenses with low-cost desktops until 2010. Microsoft has been under pressure from computer makers that produce and sell UMPCs, because their machines are still not fast enough to run Vista, but are better suited for the old Windows XP OS. In April Microsoft extended its deadline for selling Windows XP licenses to June 30th. Now "nettop" makers like ASUS and their Eee PC have two more years to sell Windows XP. Microsoft is currently supplying Windows XP licenses to more than 20 OEMs including Acer, ASUSTeK, Dell, HP, MSI and others.
AMD Adds New Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processors for One-Socket Servers and Workstations
Addressing customer demand for higher performing, uni-processor x86 solutions, AMD today introduced three new Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors for one-socket servers and workstations. Global tier-one OEMs including HP and Dell plan to incorporate the new processors into upcoming platforms, and global supercomputer leader Cray is now shipping Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processor-based Cray XT4 systems and upgrading some of the world's fastest supercomputers to incorporate Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors.
Computex 2008: Super Talent Announces 1.8-Inch Micro-SATA SSD for Laptops
Computex 2008, Super Talent has announced a new line of 1.8-inch Micro-SATA solid state drives. At merely 5mm thick, these Micro-SATA SSDs are slimmer than most 1.8-inch hard drives, and hold up to 120GB of data. "In terms of performance, power consumption, and shock and vibration resistance the MasterDrive KX is substantially better than hard drives. The MasterDrive KX is an excellent upgrade for laptop users looking for greater reliability or to accelerate bootup and load times", Super Talent Marketing Director, Joe James explained. Built with MLC NAND Flash, the MasterDrive KX SSDs are offered in 30GB, 60GB and 120GB capacities. Specs also mention about 0.1ms access time and 120MB/sec and 40MB/sec max sequential read and write speeds. Prices of these drives are as follows: $299 for the FUM30GK18H 30GB model, $449 for the FUM60GK18H 60GB model and $679 for the FUM20GK18H model.
NVIDIA Launches GeForce 9M Series of Mobile Graphics Cards and Hybrid SLI Technology
Graphics giant NVIDIA has just announced their latest generation of notebook GPUs, GeForce 9M Series, and NVIDIA Hybrid SLI technology will become available in over a hundred notebook models beginning this summer. "Beginning this summer, GeForce 9M GPUs and Hybrid SLI, paired with AMD and Intel CPUs, will enable a new breed of notebooks," said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of the GPU business at NVIDIA. "These new notebooks will be optimized to deliver a visual experience and raw computing performance that traditional cookie-cutter notebooks with integrated graphics simply can't touch." The new GeForce 9M family is said to deliver up to 40% faster performance than the previous generation GeForce notebook GPUs and 10x the performance of integrated graphics solutions. The new Go cards will also feature new PureVideo HD video processing features, full support for the latest Blu-ray advancements including BD-Live and dual-stream video playback, extensive multi-display connectivity (DVI, HDMI 1.3, Display Port 1.1, and VGA) and support for the new MXM version 3.0 graphics module specification. For more information please go to NVIDIA.
BFG Intros GeForce 8800GT OCX and 9600GT OCX
BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG GeForce 8800GT OCX and BFG GeForce 9600GT OCX 512MB PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards.
Computex 2008: Patriot
Patriot is showing off their EPP 2.0 and XMP equipped DDR3 memory at the show. The EPP version comes with some very cool green heatspreaders (NVIDIA) and the XMP version uses silver ones (Intel). These modules run at 1600 MHz with CL7 or 2000 MHz and CL9. The same heatspreaders are used on their high-end DDR2 line-up, but with a black paint job. These modules are available with speed up to 1200 MHz.
The company also produces various USB flash drives, which are also on display.
You may also try your luck against two girls from the PMS clan at Quake 4. I actually watched the 3 minute matches for some time and not a single guest managed to frag the girls even once. So I kindly declined the offer to try my luck against them.
Computex 2008: Zotac
Even though you will not find any GT200 based cards at their booth, as these have not yet officially been announced, Zotac is showing off a water cooled 9800 GTX. It comes prefilled and is maintenance free. The card is cooled by a 120 mm radiator and the water block is covered by a metal cover with the Zotac logo on it. This cooler has been designed for Zotac and is not a retail product, which has simply been installed on the card. Best of all, the card will only cost around 60 US Dollars more than the air cooled version.
Another very intersting card is the display port equipped 9600 GT. Even though this card only utilizes a single slot, this one needs two. It has many connectors available to the user, including a Display Port. This implementation actually works under Windows XP and Vista flawlessly.
A mini-ITX nForce 610i based 775 Socket board is also being presented at the show. It comes with two DIMM slots and VGA connectivity, but DVI is possible and, as you can see, there is an area already reserved for such an output.
Computex 2008: Winchip
You will find some very interesting memory products at this booth. They have a 16GB DDR2 800 MHz CL5 kit up and running. It consists of four 4GB, double-sided DIMMs. They already showed a 667 MHz kit at CeBIT, which is already shipping. There is also a DDR3 2000 MHz CL8 pair as well. The memory only requires 1.85V to achieve the rated speed and comes with more elaborate heatspreaders as the DDR2 variants. Winchip is known for offering these spreaders in multiple colors, in this case silver, blue and black. They are also presenting their Compact Flash to IDE or SATA adapters, with which you may create your own SSD drives.
Computex 2008: InWin Commander Series PSUs
You will find InWin showing off their computer cases at the show, but this little puppy caught our eye. It is the 1500W power supply from the "Commander Series". It has a modular cable tree and a very cool paint job. The unit is 80 Plus and SLI certified. For those not wanting a smaller part, it is also available 650, 750 and 850W. These are actually not as large either, but come with a 140 mm fan and removable cabels as well.
Computex 2008: Glacialtech
You will find two new CPU coolers at their booth. The first is the UFO V51, which can simply be described as massive. The prototype on display uses two 80 mm fans and four heat pipes. We were told, that the production unit will have the same design, but will be a bit smaller to maintain compatibility. It is constructed of aluminum with a pure copper base. The second CPU cooler does not yet have a name, but also uses two fans.
Their new AL and AX power supply series can also be viewed. The AL PSU is available with up to 650W, is 80 Plus certified and is actually semi-passive. The fan stops spinning if not needed. The AX series goes up to 1050W and comes with a modular cable tree. These are also 80 Plus certified.
Another very unique power supply is the AC100P series. It is a single output + USB power AC/DC unit. This means that you can not only output AC, but DC as well and can supply power to a USB device as well. This unit is ready for mass production and will cost around 100 US Dollars at retail.
Computex 2008: Albatron
Albatron is showing off their PCI based graphic cards. These use the Geforce 8500 and 8600 GPUs as well as an additional chip on the rear, which translates the PCIe interface of the GPU to PCI and back. These are low profile and feature the usual spec's of their PCIe counterparts and use active cooling. Albatron also offers AGP variants for these cards. Considering the fact, that mini-ITX board usually come with a PCI slot, these should make for some interesting combinations.
The company does make other products as well. A 22 inch IR based touch screen monitor can be viewed and tried out as well. It supports multi-touch and should come at a siginficantly lower price as smaller, capacitor based touch screens.
Besides these parts, they are also showing off P45 and X48 boards, as well as mini-ITX boards for various chipsets, using Intel G945 and AMD 690G chipsets.
Seagate Introduces Savvio 10K.3 Small Form Factor Enterprise Drive
To meet the growing demand for higher-capacity, more efficient enterprise storage systems, Seagate today introduced the Savvio 10K.3 hard drive - the world's highest-capacity, small form factor 2.5-inch enterprise hard drive built for the demands of enterprise servers and storage arrays. This latest generation of 2.5-inch drive offers 70% lower power and greater than 60% performance density over traditional 3.5-inch drives.
ASUS Unveils DRW-20B1L/B1LT Lightscribe SATA DVD Burner
ASUS, a leading provider of high-performance optical storage devices, has today unveiled the ASUS DRW-20B1L/B1LT internal DVD rewriter with LightScribe direct disc labeling technology. This industry leading DVD rewriter provides a high speed of 20X DVD±R write, 12X DVD±R (DL) and 12XDVD-RAM reading capabilities. In addition, users can expect to enjoy five times faster data transfer rates than the current DMA33 standards with the SATA interface. It also features Optimal Tuning Strategy - a technology that automatically adjusts burning for optimum disc backups; and the E-Green Engine for great energy savings.
ASUS Eee Box B202 Desktop PC Specs Emerge
While our best people Darksaber and W1zzard are at Computex 2008 gathering info and pics for you, I'll be reporting everything else that's not covered by the event. First of all, I'll start with some info leaked yesterday before the official start of Computex. ASUS has confirmed the official specs for their ASUS Eee Box desktop PC. Take a look below.
Monday, June 2nd 2008
Today's Reviews
Cooling
Graphics Cards
Memory
Motherboards
Networking
Sound Cards
NVIDIA Tegra: Tiny Computer Packs Massive Punch
Today, NVIDIA Corporation introduced the Tegra family of processors, the world's first single-chip computer capable of the rich high definition and internet experiences we've come to expect from our PCs, but on small pocket type devices. NVIDIA Tegra is a tiny computer-on-a-chip, smaller than a US dime (10-cent piece), designed from the ground up to enable the "visual PC experience" on a new generation of mobile computing devices while consuming the smallest amount of power.
Crytek Has No Plans to Further Patch Crysis
I'm afraid I have some bad news to report today. It appears that Crytek has no plans releasing future Crysis updates, at least for now. The current patch version 1.2+1.21 hotfix will remain also the last one to be released for Crysis.
So, What About Patch 1.3?
At this time, there almost certainly will not be a patch 1.3 delivered for Crysis. We are aware that this news will disappoint many of you, and we would like to apologize profusely. There is a good reason for this and we hope you understand when you hear more about the reasons why in the very, very near future. Please realize this was an extremely difficult decision, but please do know that we are listening to your comments and are making more consistent community support a high priority.
WD Introduces New Family of 7200 RPM 2.5-inch Hard Drives
Western Digital Corp. today announced it is now shipping its new line of WD Scorpio Black 7200 RPM 2.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives for high-performance notebook computers and portable storage devices. Available in capacities up to 320GB, WD Scorpio Black hard drives are designed with ruggedness, reliability, and data-protection features that actively monitor and protect valuable data.
Computex 2008: We are on location
The biggest asian IT show is about to kick off, here in Taipeh, in less than 24 hours. We are on location once more, to bring you the latest and greatest the industry has to offer. Instead of writing seperate articles on each manufacturer, we will present you the newest and most interesting in form of news posts like this one. This means that we should be able to publish news faster and the review bar up top is not cluttered with articles. As you can see, we also added a Computex logo to this news post. Simply clicking on it, will display a link of the most recent entries in this category.
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