Legit Reviews News History
Tech nightmares: Windows XP Service Pack 2
" Windows XP was getting leaky, like an old, rotting ghost ship beset by code-eating worms and skulking security monsters. So to exorcise this ship's demons, Microsoft had to purge the ghouls, then patch like never before. Hence, we have the good ship Windows XP SP2, which set sail two months ago.
Anyone who owns a PC can't do without Windows (let's be honest, how many of us will actually spend the time to decipher Linux?), and you're probably as eager to keep hackers, viruses, and Trojan horses as far from your PC as the next guy. But while Windows XP SP2 takes a more proactive defense against viruses, potentially dangerous files, and, of course, stupid human tricks, its new antics are sure to rub longtime Windows users the wrong way. Worse, like every major Windows upgrade--and don't let the name fool you, SP2 is major--it busts some applications.
From Monday through Friday this week, we'll tackle a frightening new XP SP2 tale of terror each day. Our tips and hints will help you deal with SP2--or keep it at arm's length if that's what you want--so that you can smoothly sail the Windows waters. "
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 05:47 AM
Internet use cutting into TV viewing and socializing
"The average Internet user in the United States spends three hours a day online, with much of that time devoted to work and more than half of it to communications, according to a survey conducted by a group of political scientists.
The survey found that use of the Internet has displaced television watching and a range of other activities. Internet users watch television for one hour and 42 minutes a day, compared with the national average of two hours, said Norman H. Nie, director of the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, a research group that has been exploring the social consequences of the Internet."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:54 AM
Report: Craigslist costing newspapers millions
"Free community Web site Craigslist has cost San Francisco Bay Area newspapers up to $65 million in employment advertising revenue, according to a report released Monday.
Craigslist, which generates more than 1 billion page-views each month, also has cost the newspapers millions more in merchandise and real estate advertising, and has damaged other traditional classified advertising businesses, according to a report published by Classified Intelligence."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:50 AM
Have we already seen Intel's Dual Core CPU?
"As the Inquirer disscusses details on the upcoming Smithfield dual core processor, one wonders as to the legitimacy of the recent DCPU for sale on EBay. You decide, images of the chip may be found here."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:43 AM
Intel starts sampling 600-series chip, AMD moves ahead on dual-core Opteron
" Intel has sampled one of its 600-series CPUs to some of its clients in Taiwan and has also given more details of technology support for its 945/955 chipsets for the dual-core Smithfield CPUs, which are slated for launch in the second quarter of next year, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers.
Intel will use a codename, the P4P, to distinguish its 600-series chips that feature support of Intel?s Speedstep technology, Enhanced Memory 64-bit Technology (EM64T) and Execution Disable Bit (EDB) capability, the sources noted."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:40 AM
The top-ten DigiTimes.com articles and interviews of 2004
" In 2004, DigiTimes.com wrote over 4,080 articles in English, and DigiTimes.com was visited almost eight million times, with the site delivering 21.7 million impressions (year-on-year growth in the number of visits in 2003 has been 11.8%, while impressions are up 34.3%). Articles have, on average, been viewed around a couple of thousand times each, but about 150 articles were viewed 5,000 or more times. "
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:39 AM
Intel's dual core Smithfield two slabs together
" THE BURNING QUESTION about dual cores is how will Intel implement Smithfield and its spawn. Since it is just two cores on a slab, it could be done in a bunch of ways.
Intel is not going to take the easy way out, put two cores in a package and wire them together, but they are going to come close.
Smithfield will simply be two adjacent Prescott cores with a little additional wiring between them. Every second row of cores on a wafer will probably be mirror imaged and the only new stuff is the wiring between the two cores."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:36 AM
ATI's SLI to work without connector
" ATI'S WAY OF doing SLI called AMR (ATI Multi Rendering) will work differently from Nvidia's now world famous SLI. ATI will make its SLI work without a small printed circuit board (PCB) to interconnect the cards.
SLI uses two PCIe graphic ports and in the case of Nforce 4, works at PCIe 8X for each card and renders your picture with both cards. For this operation Nvidia SLI needs a special interconnection between two graphic cards. It?s a small cable or PCB that transfers up to four GB per second from one card to another. For this operation, coordination is crucial as one card needs to know what the other card is doing."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:35 AM
Nforce 5 to clock Pentium 4 bus to 1200MHz
" THE NFORCE 5 CHIPSET will be a highly overclockable chipset. Our sources confirmed that the Nvidia Pentium 4 chipset will go up to FSB 1200MHz, using 300MHz rather than 200MHz multiples. "
Posted by | Fri, Dec 31, 2004 - 04:34 AM
Nvidia's 6200 AGP to come
" WE HEARD that Nvidia plans to bring all of the Geforce six series back to AGP. Nvidia wants to make Shader 3.0 available for all of its customers as many of them still have AGP systems.
The company is working on a printed circuit board (PCB) that will enable its customers to make 6200 AGP cards. Of course this card will be powered with the BR2, HSI chip which translates PCIe commands to AGP and vice versa.
We are not sure when these cards are going to be ready but 6600GT AGP cards are already available and 6600 standard AGP are expected shortly.
We are quite sure that those cards won't use Turbo Cache as the AGP interface is one way only and it's not wide enough for all of the data. This leaves Nvidia and its partners with two options. To base 6200 AGP on NV43-V chips used in 6200 standard or to base them on NV44 cards used in 6200TC.
This will put some additional pressure on ATI, as it still does not support Shader model 3.0. We know that ATI will chose the same path from R520 to all other future products but Nvidia definitely have lead over the competition as it complete generation weather we are talking about PCIe or AGP cards. ATI bridge chip is still not ready but it should be toward the middle of Q1 2005."
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 07:50 AM
Albatron could acquire Chaintech
" CONSOLIDATION may be on the way for a number of the Taiwanese second and third tier players.
Earlier today we reported that Palit is likely to snap up graphics firm Gainward, and now we've heard a fresh rumour out of Old Taipei.
That is that Albatron is interested in acquiring the business of Chaintech - the reason being that the latter has a VGA factory that the former covets.
Right now, it's just a rumour and neither company could be contacted for each to formally deny or to confirm the speculation.
Because Albatron may covet the VGA production facilities all it wants, but if Chaintech doesn't want it to happen, we guess it just plain won't"
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 07:48 AM
Phel Threatens WinXP SP2
There is another Trojan out there called Phel that exploits how help files are called from web pages. There is still no patch for this exploit, originally found a couple months ago by a Chinese security company.
The program--dubbed Phel, an anagram of 'Help,' by antivirus firms--infects visitors to a maliciously-created Web site through Internet Explorer's Help controls, security firm Symantec stated in an advisory. A bug in the program may prevent it from infecting some computers, the firm said."
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 05:31 AM
More CPU Facts & Fantasy
" For those of you AMD Athlon FX fans, it does not look that we will see much core speed scaling in the coming year, although we are hearing rumors of a possible 250Mhz FSB Athlon FX. AMD roadmaps show to be sticking at "FX-57" through Q4'05. I would assume this to be a 2.8GHz part. The same roadmaps do however show the ?Plain Jane? Athlon 64 939-pin CPU at 4200+ ratings and possibly above by Q3'05. As we have mentioned here a few times before, AMD's Sempron line of mainstream CPUs will take over the socket 754 line of products completely in late 2005 with the 3700+ being the last 754 socketed Athlon 64.
On the Intel single core side of things we should see a 3.73GHz 1066MHz bus driven Pentium 4 EE kicked off in Q1'05, likely February. Also we have seen some talk about Intel's EDB or Execute Disable Bit. This is a CPU feature that can help stop buffer overflow attacks. Also this is likely the first Intel CPU we will see with EM64T support for WinXP Pro x64. This EDB feature is offered in current Prescott E Stepping processors now. EDB is designated by a "J" suffix in the 5XX and 3XX processor models. WinXP SP2 is needed to enable this feature. You can find out more about it here on Intel's site. "
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 05:28 AM
PlayStation 3 GPU: NV40 and NV50 Hybrid with XDR DRAM, Says Report
"Some peculiarities of the PlayStation 3 graphics processing unit developed at NVIDIA Corp. showed up on the web. It appears, that the visual processing unit will merge NVIDIA?s present and future generation architectures and will have built-in memory controller that supports Rambus? XDR DRAM.
PlayStation 3 GPU Details Materialize
A report over Japanese web-site PC Watch suggests that the PlayStation 3 graphics processing unit will use NVIDIA?s technologies found in the current NV40 generation of its own chips as well as numerous techniques developed for the next-generation part known under NV50 code-name. Still, despite of circuitries of the company?s desktop chips found in the GPU, according to NVIDIA?s chief Jen-Hsun Huang, the PlayStation 3 GPU has nothing to do with Microsoft Windows, Microsoft DirectX or OpenGL and will use Sony?s API for the console. Naturally, the PlayStation 3 graphics processing units supports XDR DRAM memory developed by Rambus. While there is nothing new in Rambus memory for Sony, NVIDIA has never worked with memory by Rambus."
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 05:25 AM
Intel pre-announces Centrino Sonoma
" CHIP GIANT Intel is briefing the US press about the introduction of its Sonoma microprocessor for notebooks.
VP Anand Chandrasekher, VP of Intel's mobile group, told the Wall St Journal that it will use next week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to set out its notebook stall.
Chandrasekher told the Journal that third party firms will show off 150 notebooks using Sonoma when it's launched."
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 05:23 AM
Intel: EM64T and AMD64 the same, practically
" THERE'S ONLY one difference between AMD64 processors and EM64T processors, according to Intel documents seen by the INQUIRER.
Referring to its competitor - by which Intel means AMD - the chip giant makes the clearest statement we've seen yet on the similarities.
In a paragraph intended to aid Intel customers market desktop processors which will include EM64T instructions in 2005, the chip firm says:
"Even though the hardware micro-architecture for each company's processor is different, the operating system and software ported to one processor will likely run on the other processor due to the close similarity of the instruction set architectures"."
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 05:21 AM
3DMark 05 dissected
" Digit-life ponders on the ins and outs of 3DMark 2005, which together with Sandra is slowly pushing away the Winstone Brothers. DL articles are generally, very documented; and so is this one. Read it and you will find why it considers it as a success. "
Posted by | Thu, Dec 30, 2004 - 05:21 AM
Taiwan makers start delivering Pentium M motherboards
" DFI, a Taiwan-based motherboard maker, has started delivering its Pentium M motherboard, the 855GME-MGF, for desktops to its channels in the US, Japan and Europe, although not in large volumes, said a spokesperson for DFI.
The spokesperson stated that DFI could ramp up production of its 855GME-MGF motherboards, if the supply of Intel 855GME chipsets is sufficient.
While noting that the supply of the 855GME chipsets is falling short of demand, the spokesperson declined to reveal DFI?s actual shipment figures for its 855GME motherboards. The board supports Intel notebook-use socket 479 Pentium M processors.
DFI?s 855GME-MGF came after AOpen, another Taiwan-based motherboard maker, unveiled the industry?s first Pentium M motherboard, the i855GMEm-LFS, in October, noted the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, an AOpen spokesperson confirmed that shipment volumes for its i855GMEm-LFS motherboards to Japan are relatively high, compared to shipments of this board to other markets. The spokesperson also noted that the company has received many inquiries about this board.
These Pentium M motherboards from DFI and AOpen are designed for performance players and carry a price tag of around US$240 a piece in the channel, compared to about US$120 for Intel 915-based motherboards, according to market sources."
Posted by | Wed, Dec 29, 2004 - 02:32 AM
Intel introduces iWindscreenWiper?, iChef? and iFlexyDesktopMobos?
" SOURCES SAID Intel is likely to introduce its 6XX family of desktop processors in week nine of 2005. As we've revealed before, the first processors will be at speeds of between 3GHz to 3.6GHz. The chip giant is hoping to introduce the 3.8GHz version in the second quarter. All these processors have 2MB of level two cache and the chip giant has been busy sampling them since the middle of November.
They also all support iAMD64, or EM64T, as Intel calls 64-32 tech, and hyperthreading. The firm is encouraging its channels to market to sell up the 6XX chips over the 5XX on cache, and on branding, as well as using the XD (execute disable) bit, which AMD describes as the NX bit, and which will stop certain kinds of viral attack.
SSE3 is also being pushed as providing improved multimedia for software applications that can take account of it, while EM64T promises support for future 64-bit applications. The 2MB level two cache will provide better gaming, Intel says."
Posted by | Wed, Dec 29, 2004 - 02:29 AM
RAID 0 Under Fire
"It has come to our attention that RAID 0 has recently come under fire by some of the major PC enthusiast publications. StorageReview.com and Anandtech.com have both published articles purporting that RAID 0 is unnecessary for the desktop computer. Fastsilicon.com begs to differ, to some extent. Read on for our interpretation of RAID 0 and our humble attempt to set the record straight.
First off, we?re not going to tell you what RAID 0 is. That?s right, we?re going to talk about a subject and not even tell you what it is! Why you ask? Simple: if you?re reading this publication chances are you already know what RAID 0 is. You see, your average reader of Fastsilion, Anandtech, StorageReview and Overclockers isn?t your average computer user. They?re enthusiasts. They spend many hours on their PCs, working or playing, upgrading and overclocking. They?re the ?gear heads? of the 21st Century, but instead of cars it?s PCs. So you already know what RAID 0 is and you probably already know if you need it or not, so you probably could just skip over this article, but we would advise you read it anyway.
So what?d Anandtech say about RAID 0? ??there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.? Read Anandtech's article here
And StorageReview.com: ?To summarize, RAID 0 offers generally minimal performance gains, significantly increased risk of data loss, and greater cost.? Read StorageReview's article here"
Posted by | Tue, Dec 28, 2004 - 11:45 PM