HP today unveiled workstation offerings that include the first small form factor workstation to be available in every region of the world, multicore processor updates to its Z Workstation series and a mobile workstation with DreamColor display technology.

Adding to the award-winning HP Z Workstation series, the HP Z200 SFF Workstation delivers workstation performance and reliability in a sleek, ultracompact and affordable package, and is a great choice for space-constrained environments including the health care, engineering, education, financial and original equipment manufacturer markets.

In Win released its newest case, the Ironclad. The case makes extensive use of an industrial design with parts of its exterior making use of perforated metal, appealing more to the LAN-party animals and case-modders. It is a fairly large full-ATX tower measuring 550x225x566mm (21.7"x8.9"x22.3") HxWxD, which is made mostly of SECC steel. It has 5 external 5.25" bays and a drive cage with six 3.5" drive bays. Also included is a 2.5" bay for SSDs. The motherboard tray features cable-management holes, along with a big hole at the CPU socket area for managing CPU coolers with backplates. There are 8 expansion slots, with the 8th one making installing double-slot graphics cards on the last expansion slot easy. Each slot cover has a vent with dust-filters. Dust filters also make it to other areas such as the PSU air intake and the front grill.

The case has vents on almost every side. Fans include one 120 mm front, a rear 120 mm, a top 120 mm fan (while the top has slot for two 120 mm fans), a large 220 mm fan on the side-panel, which also has holders for four 120 mm fans instead of the 220 mm fan. Some panels also come with noise-dampening foam padding. Right below the expansion slots and above the PSU, there are four holes for water-cooling tubings, for two independent loops. The front-panel is located on the top, and has FP audio, two USB ports, two eSATA, and an IEEE-1394a. Although released, In Win didn't announce a price for the Ironclad.

ASUS today announced the launch of the new ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer motherboard which maximizes transmission speeds by integrating the industry's latest I/O technologies such as USB 3.0, SATA 6G storage interface, and IEEE 1394b FireWire standard. Additionally, the ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer is equipped with the LGA1156 socket and the latest Intel 3450 chipset with onboard graphics. For extreme gaming enjoyment, up to four ATI CrossFireX cards or 3-way/2-way NVIDIA SLI cards can be accommodated to generate smoother and sharper visuals. It also leverages NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing architecture to support up to four NVIDIA Tesla cards with Clarkdale Processors for intensive high-performance computing.

The ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer is the best choice for providing comprehensive I/O support. It includes USB 3.0 ports-the latest connectivity standard with 4.8Gb/s speeds-to support next-generation components and peripherals. USB 3.0 transfers data ten times faster and is backward compatible with USB 2.0 components. Additionally, the ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer includes Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/s storage interfaces for 6.0Gbps data throughput, thus enhancing scalability, accelerating data retrieval, and doubling the bandwidth of current bus systems. To support FireWire-enabled digital video recorders and computers, the ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer also includes two IEEE 1394b ports supporting up to 800 Mb/s speeds-doubling the previous IEEE 1394a speeds.

The 1394 Trade Association today announced a new specification to quadruple the speed of FireWire to reach 3.2 gigabits per second.

The new electrical specification, known as S3200, builds upon the IEEE 1394b standard, preserving all the advantages of FireWire while offering a major and unprecedented boost in performance. The new speed uses the cables and connectors already deployed for FireWire 800 products, making the transition forward easy and convenient for 1394 product vendors and their customers. Because the 1394 arbitration, data, and service protocols were not modified for S3200, silicon and software vendors can deploy the faster speed FireWire quickly and with confidence that it will deliver its full potential performance. The S3200 specification is expected to be ratified by early February.