VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced its entry into the design manufacturing service business to offer provide flexible system hardware solutions, starting with the new VIA NSD7200 home storage and media server.

Building on its success as a pioneer of system level innovation in small form factor and IPC markets, VIA can provide OEM and ODM customers with customized versions of home and SOHO storage platforms targeting specific markets. By combining energy-efficient processor platforms and high quality chassis designs with a full design manufacturing service and comprehensive engineering support, VIA enables customers to more accurately address the needs of system integrators and retailers by speeding up product cycles and reducing production costs.

Super Micro Computer, Inc., a leader in application-optimized, high-performance server solutions, today launched a comprehensive new line of server and workstation solutions specially designed to support the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series (formerly codenamed Nehalem). Supermicro has started shipping its new 2U Twin2 ("Twin Squared" with four hot-pluggable DP nodes), newly invented Twin GPU 1U server/workstation, the award-winning 1U Twin, SuperBlade, flexible Universal I/O (UIO) server, SAS2 storage systems, as well as its strong line of traditional application-optimized server solutions. Featuring the highest efficiency in the industry power supplies (93%+), cooling subsystems and motherboard designs, Supermicro solutions set a new record for the best performance-per-watt (375 GFLOPS/kW) and also deliver the best performance-per-dollar and performance-per-square-foot.

Based on the company's latest application-optimized Server Building Block architectures, Supermicro maximizes the new Nehalem technology, which includes QPI (Intel QuickPath Interconnect) for up to 6.4GT/s, Integrated DDR3 Memory Controller, multiple power envelops, and Intel Turbo Boost Technology, to provide the industry's highest performing and most optimized new generation server solutions.

Bigfoot Networks is perhaps the first company that gave the network interface card (NIC) a high-end consumer take. The Killer N1 and K1 PCI NICs were known to come with some very innovative features that, as our review showed, did impact positively on networked gaming performance. After close to two and a half years since its previous NIC, Bigfoot Networks Killer is back. In the making is the Killer Xeno NIC.

With near identical features and more, this NIC takes the advantage of the newer leaner components in the market, such as the NPU which may be using a newer manufacturing process, NPU-accelerated audio that provides audio-chat with zero system-overhead, and up to 256 MB of onboard memory to drive this mini "PC inside PC". The ASIC is done away with, a newer gigabit Ethernet transceiver made by Broadcom is present. The card uses a native PCI-Express x1 interface. It comes in two variants: the 128 MB "Pro", and 256 MB "Ultra". Apart from selling these cards under its own banner, Bigfoot Networks has struck an OEM deal with Alienware. Also, the company has an AIB partner (a-la graphics cards), and guess who it is - EVGA. The Xeno Ultra will be priced at US $179.99, and the Xeno Pro at $129.99.

BenQ is in the expansion mode with its all-in-one PC lineup. Almost a month ago, the company's nScreen i91 surfaced, characterized by the AMD "Yukon" ULV platform that drives it. The company's Japanese division is out with another such PC: the nScreen i221. This model is the larger model, with a 21.5-inch HD LCD display, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. On the inside, the hardware remains the same as with the nScreen i91: an AMD Sempron 210U 1.50 GHz CPU that's non-upgradable, 1 GB of DDR2 memory, AMD 690E core-logic with ATI Radeon X1200 integrated graphics, and 160 GB of storage. On the peripherals front, it features a 1.3 MP web camera, 4-in-1 digital card reader, and connectivity that includes WiFi, and Ethernet. The nScreen i221 is expected to be launched globally by October.

Pictured last month as merely a low-end variant of the Blood Rage X58 series (read here), Foxconn Flaming Blade X58 has emerged as a product series in itself, with two sub-variants: Flaming Blade X58 and Flaming Blade X58 GTI. The former being the base-model, while the latter is a scaled-down, even cheaper one.

Both motherboards feature an identical feature set for the most part: Three DDR3-1800 DIMM slots, two PCI-E x16 slots, near-identical board layouts, etc. The differences start with the GTI variant featuring simpler component cooling, with individual heatsinks over the chipset and VRM areas. The base-model has a heat-pipe based cooler. Another set of differences are present with the boards' back-panel and the connectors on offer: the GTI variant lacks two eSATA connectors and an Ethernet controller (although the picture suggests otherwise). Both models will cater to the $200 market price-point.

Marvell Semiconductor has come up with a marvel: the SheevaPlug computer software/hardware development kit (SHDK). The initiative puts to use the company's Sheeva ARM processor in a compact unit the size and form of a retro wall-mount AC-DC adapter. Consuming no more than 5 W of power, the unit can function as a full-featured PC, driving Linux. It packs a 1.2 GHz Sheeva ARM processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 512 MB of flash-based fixed storage.

Throwing open the development kit would mean companies wanting to build similar devices based on Marvell hardware. The SheevaPlug is built around the Marvell 88F6000 Kirkwood SoC design that makes use of Feroceon and XScale architectures, both of which are derivatives of ARM. Gigabit Ethernet and USB ports add to the connectivity. With several industry heavyweights such as Microsoft and Google predicting a bright future for cloud-computing, companies such as Marvell can only help but gain interest in developing inexpensive devices that drive the client-side machinery for it. Take a guess on how much SheevaPlug costs: US $100 in single unit retail quantities. What's more, it could be bought in bulk for as low as $50 a piece!

A relatively unknown brand, Cherrypal introduced a PC module dubbed 'cloud computer'. It carries a price tag of US $250. Sure you do find pre-owned full-size PCs for that price, but just think of it: this PC consumes a mere 2W of power when idle (excludes the consumption of monitor and other peripherals).

On the features front, there's enough computing power to get you onto the internet, it is driven by a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT triple-core processor, 256 MB DDR2 memory and 4 GB of NAND flash memory to store the OS, a Debian-derived Linux OS, Mozilla Firefox as the core internet application (supports all add-ons and Linux media plugins). 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, VGA out, and stereo audio out. It beats the $929 VidaBox PC convincingly at its price-point. Sure, such devices are mere toys for average users like us sitting cozy with powerful gaming PCs, but such devices are a step in the right direction, towards Cloud Computing.

Cloud computing, a new buzzword in the computing industry, is the computing methodology where software is thin and light, and streamed onto a computer. A user accesses software either freely or on a subscription basis. All you need is a standards compiant web-browser, OS isn't a factor. This has gotten players such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe and others looking up to it as the next big thing. You don't need to buy those installation discs and throw gigabytes of hard-drive space at applications anymore.

Intel Corporation today announced two new Ethernet controllers that facilitate high traffic flow and optimize I/O performance in such enterprise server environments as multicore Intel Xeon processor-based systems and virtualized datacenters. The Intel 82598 and Intel 82575 Ethernet controllers distribute workloads across all available processing cores to reduce utilization and achieve optimal system performance.