Legit Reviews News History
Delay of ATI R520 to boost Nvidia 4Q sales
ATI's problem with leakage on the R520 on the 90nm front sounds like the original Intel Prescott all over again. Looks like nVIDIA will get luck and have a great 4Q thanks to ATI's delays.
The delay of the ATI Technologies R520 graphics processing unit (GPU) will benefit sales of the Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX (G70), as more PC vendors including Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have decided to adopt the GeForce 7800 series for their high-end PC models slated for release at the end of this year, according to unspecified Taiwan motherboard makers.
ATI is currently revamping the chip design of its R520, said the makers, adding that the company is facing leakage issues, as it attempts to migrates its manufacturing to a 90nm process. The situation is similar to when Nvidia postponed the availability of its 0.13-micron NV30 high-end chip in 2002 due to production issues, the makers pointed out.
Posted by | Thu, Jun 30, 2005 - 08:34 AM
RSS in Longhorn Raises Security Fears
Analysts warn that Microsoft's plan to bake content syndication deep into the belly of Longhorn will open new attack vectors for spammers, phishers and malware writers. Basically the idea is that an RSS item could have embedded scripting, which would easily allow a virus to spread quickly due to the RSS feed. Pretty interesting debate going on and Longhorn is still many months away.
The plan is for Longhorn to provide a common feed list of subscriptions and a common feed store of data in Longhorn, which will be available to applications through Windows APIs. The Redmond, Wash., company's vision also includes RSS discovery and easy-to-subscribe options in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 browser refresh.
With Longhorn, Microsoft will make RSS more understandable to the average, non-technical end user, but once the technology reaches critical mass it will surely become a lucrative target for malicious hackers.
Posted by | Wed, Jun 29, 2005 - 12:47 PM
China Now Has 100+ Million People Online
The number of internet users in China has risen above 100 million for the first time, according to reports in the country's state media. This is great news for the IT industry as pretty much every company sees China as the next exploding market in the world.
Of the 100 million net users, about 30 million have broadband. Mobile phone usage is also on the rise, gaining about 60 million new users each year. There are now 358 million mobile phone users in China and it makes up 44.6% of China's telecom business.
Posted by | Wed, Jun 29, 2005 - 12:42 PM
India Close To $100 Personal Computer
In about three months, a little-known company called Novatium plans to offer a stripped-down home computer for about $70 or $75. That is about half the price of the standard "thin clients" of this kind now sold in India, made possible in part by some novel engineering choices. Adding a monitor doubles the price to $150, but the company will offer used displays to keep the cost down.
Because of thriving exports and low PC penetration, India has become the epicenter for projects on the cutting edge of computing hardware. Advanced Micro Devices has started to sell its Personal Internet Communicator for $235, including monitor, through a broadband partner here. It says a fully equipped $100 personal computer in three years isn't out of the question.
Posted by | Wed, Jun 29, 2005 - 08:21 AM
Intel to cut Celeron D processor prices 5.4-13.5%, AMD to follow suit
On the heels of introducing support for extended memory 64 technology (Intel EM64T), or 64-bit memory addressability, to its Celeron line with the its Celeron D 351, Intel plans to cut the prices of its desktop-use Celeron D processors 5.4-13.5% on July 24, according to PC makers.
In addition, Intel has scheduled price cuts for its Pentium 4 lineup in August.
Intel?s price-cutting strategy will be a threat for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), as the price gap between Intel Celeron and AMD Sempron lineups narrows, according to the PC makers.
However, according to other sources in the industry, AMD will lower the prices on its Athlon 64 processors by the end of July.
Posted by | Wed, Jun 29, 2005 - 06:27 AM
Military might draft XM Satellite Radio
Customers of XM Satellite Radio aren't the only ones who appreciate its digital quality and nationwide coverage. The U.S. military might draft XM's service for homeland security purposes. XM and Raytheon have jointly built a communications system that would use XM's satellites to relay information to soldiers and emergency responders during a crisis.
The Mobile Enhanced Situational Awareness Network, known as MESA, would get a dedicated channel on XM's satellites that would be accessible only on devices given to emergency personnel. The receivers would be the same as the portable ones available to consumers, with slight modifications to make them more rugged.
The military often leases transmission space on commercial satellites, but this collaboration between a massive defense contractor and a fun-loving radio network ? XM's first two satellites were dubbed "Rock" and "Roll," and its next two might be "Rhythm" and "Blues" ? is unusual.
Posted by | Wed, Jun 29, 2005 - 04:05 AM
Futuremark releases PCMark2005
Listen up you benchmarking geeks, futuremark has released the latest in their series of fine benchmarks..... make sure to check it out and let us know what you think.
PCMark05 is the latest version of the PC performance benchmark program from Futuremark Corporation. This unique program provides an accurate and consistent assessment of the performance of your PC in general home environment usage. PCMark05 can be easily obtained and it is easy to install and run.
By using PCMark05 and the Online ResultsBrowser, you can get:
- A PCMark score - recognised and comparable measurement of the home environment performance of your PC.
- Detailed results of all tests.
- A comparison of your machine against thousands of others, from every corner of the globe!
- An educated estimate as to how much better your system will perform with certain upgrades.
PCMark05 features:
PCMark05 comes in three versions, Basic Edition, Advanced Edition and Professional Edition. PCMark05 Basic Edition can be downloaded freely, but it has very limited functionality.
Basic Edition features:
- System tests, presenting the total PCMark score.
- Online services. Submit your results and compare them to - PCMark05 results from all over the world.
Advanced Edition features:
- System tests, presenting the total PCMark score.
- CPU test suite, giving a CPU score
- Memory test suite, giving a Memory score.
- Graphics test suite, giving a graphics score.
- HDD test suite and a total HDD score.
- System Info, showing your PC hardware and system software in detail.
- Online services. Submit your results and compare them to - PCMark05 results from all over the world.
Professional Edition features (in addition to above):
- Customizability options over the tests including multithreaded tests modification
- Command line options
Requirements:
- Microsoft Windows XP operating system.
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 installed, for Web Browsing test and SystemInfo (download).
- Microsoft Media Player 10 (download)
- Microsoft Media Encoder 9 download).
- DirectX 9.0c or higher runtime (included in the PCMark05 - Advanced and Professional CD installation package, and available as download)
- Required Hardware
- PCMark05 package requires approx. 110MB of Hard Disk space and running the tests require additional 130MB space.
Posted by | Tue, Jun 28, 2005 - 11:19 PM
Supreme Court rules against file swapping
Looks like the entertainment industry secured a major win in the battle against online P2P sites. Could BitTorrent be next?
The Supreme Court has handed movie studios and record labels a sweeping victory against file swapping, ruling that peer-to-peer companies such as Grokster could be held responsible for the copyright piracy on their networks.
Posted by | Tue, Jun 28, 2005 - 09:30 AM
AMD files antitrust suit against Intel
AMD Inc. has gone after Intel Corp. in the United States as they filedan antitrust case yesterday in Delaware. The lawsuit claims that Intel "bullied", or paid off in reality, 38 companies into using Intel CPU's. I'm sure this case will drag on for a LONG time.
hip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corp., alleging its competitor coerces companies to keep them from using AMD-manufactured microprocessors. The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleges Intel has bullied 38 companies, including large-scale computer-makers, wholesale distributors and retailers, to secure a monopoly in the highly competitive x86 microprocessor market.
Posted by | Tue, Jun 28, 2005 - 07:29 AM
Yahoo overhauls free Web e-mail service
Yahoo is planning to overhaul its free Web-based e-mail service to make it work more like a desktop e-mail program, the company announced late Monday.
The service will feature e-mail caching to shorten response time, message preview and drag-and-drop filing, the company said. A limited number of customers will be able to participate in the beta test of the new service in coming weeks, with general availability to follow in coming months, said Ethan Diamond, product director for Yahoo e-mail.
Yahoo e-mail users will be able to decide on using the new version, sticking with the older version, or using both. The new service currently works with only Internet Explorer and Firefox, but support for other browsers is expected to follow.
Posted by | Tue, Jun 28, 2005 - 01:43 AM
Intel seeing weak dual-core sales, but memory makers remain hopeful
Taiwan-based DRAM makers expect the upcoming price cuts for Intel 945 chipsets will speed the market?s migration to DDR2-667, while motherboard makers may be hoping the drop in price will provide a needed jolt to the less than satisfactory Intel dual-core CPU system sales, according to Taiwan motherboard and DRAM makers.
Intel is unlikely to reach its dual-core CPU shipment goals in the second and third quarters due to weak demand, according to sources with motherboard makers.
With weak demand for Pentium D processors, Intel will be unable to see the dual-core segment account for 5% of its LGA775 socket processor shipments in the second quarter, the sources said. Intel had also expected dual-core Pentium D CPUs to account for 10% of its LGA775 socket processor shipments in the third quarter, and 15% in the fourth quarter, but the sources stated Pentium D shipments will fall far short of Intel?s goal in the third quarter.
Posted by | Tue, Jun 28, 2005 - 01:41 AM
Intel Adds Affordable 64-bit Pentium 4 Processors into Price-List
The world?s largest chipmaker Intel Corp. has quietly added several Intel Pentium 4 500-series processors with 64-bit capability turned on into its price-list. The company did not specifically announce the chips, but their addition to the list means that the firm is actually shipping them and even users in budget would shortly take advantage of the 64-bit technology.
Intel?s lineup of EM64T- and EDB-enabled Intel Pentium 4 processor 500-series, as expected consists of models 571, 561, 551, 541, 531 and 521, which are clocked at 3.80GHz, 3.60GHz, 3.40GHz, 3.20GHz, 3.00GHz and 2.80GHz respectively. The new chips substitute Intel Pentium 4 models 570, 560, 550, 540, 530 and 520 on the market, the world?s largest chipmaker indicated. The new microprocessors support Hyper-Threading tech, are equipped with 1MB of L2 cache, designed to be drop-in compatible with LGA775 infrastructure with 800MHz processor system bus and retain thermal specs similar to predecessors. Intel also has plans to intriduce a 2.66GHz chip without HT that use 533MHz processor system bus, but still sports EM64T. The only thing needed to use the new 64-bit processors with already installed mainboards is BIOS support for the EM64T.
Posted by | Mon, Jun 27, 2005 - 06:00 PM
Samsung Develops Memory for Future Graphics Cards, Consoles
Samsung Electronics has announced that it had created the world?s first GDDR3 memory chip capable of working at 2.0GHz effective clock-speed. The company has also said its 1.60GHz GDDR3 memory products were available for customers.
Posted by | Mon, Jun 27, 2005 - 08:58 AM
FX-57 released into wild
Maybe its just me, but I was a bit underwhelmed looking around at the reviews today. I understand everyone probably just got their review sample last week, but I'd rather be a day behind everyone else and put out a comprehensive review of the most anticipated processor in awhile (no offense to the X2 or Pentium D). I was especially disappointed that most reviews were fairly vanilla in their overclocking segments, and almost all interchangeable.
AMDZone FX57, FX59, FX61 Performance Preview
Hexus
HotHardware
Tech Report
Firing Squad
xbitlabs
3dvelocity
bit tech
Extremetech
Driver Heaven
Posted by | Mon, Jun 27, 2005 - 08:53 AM
ATI R520 launch slated for July 26th
ATI rumors have been floating aroung that the yields of ATI's R530 A1 stepping, are not up to par. No big deal though as this is common and ATI is currently said to be making strides on the new A13 revision with better luck and should be done in July.
Over at Computex, we heard faintly that the next generation ATi R520 GPU will be launched on July 26th, a month later than NVIDIA G70 slated for full scale release later this month. Many of the NVIDIA partners have already received the G70 samples and are working hard to deliver their solutions on time so it will not be a paper launch definitely. So far ATi has quietly showed their important business partners a working R520 demo behind doors at Computex but it is a single card not Crossfired. The R520 card looks pretty much like a X850XT PE which is a dual slot solution but has a mosfet sink like the NVIDIA's and the PWM area is improved. The copper heatsink on the GPU is bigger if i can still remember correctly and there is a HDTV connector on the card too. ATi seems pretty confident about their R520 to match up and even surpass the NVIDIA G70 so we shall see about it.
Posted by | Mon, Jun 27, 2005 - 08:42 AM
Could HP's AMD laptop sway Dell?
Much has been made of Dell's refusal to use AMD processors. Could a competitor's policy shift, as well as AMD's popularity make Dell change it's tune?
The up-to-now immovable object of Intel chips in Dell computers may have met an irresistible force in a new laptop from each company's closest rival, an analyst says.
This week Hewlett-Packard and Advanced Micro Devices began taking orders for their joint effort, the Compaq nx6125 notebook, and as soon as they did, analysts began talking about a potential shift in the balance of power in the PC world.
"This is a huge win for AMD," said Sam Bhavnani, a senior analyst with Current Analysis. "This will impact mostly small-business purchases. The large enterprises will not shift from Intel to AMD in the near term. However, any small or medium-sized business that is in a replacement cycle now has to consider the Turion 64 HP option."
Posted by | Sun, Jun 26, 2005 - 01:34 PM
Schonning v. ABIT Computer (USA) Corporation
This is a fairly old story, but I figured today was as good as time as any to remind those of you who were impacted by Abit's capacitor problem awhile back. Go to the linked site and check to see if your ABIT motherboard was affected and whether it is covered by the class action settlement.
You are a member of the proposed Settlement class (the "Class"), if you are within the United States and you purchased one of the following specified ABIT Motherboard models during the period January 1, 1999 to the present: BE6, BE6II, BF6, BX-133, KA7, KA7-100, SE6, VH6, VH6II, VH6T, VP6, KT7-RAID, KT7A, KT7A-RAID, VL6, VT6X4, SA6R, AND BX133-RAID.
Posted by | Sun, Jun 26, 2005 - 01:31 PM
Graphics-card makers to ship Nvidia GeForce 7 series cards at end of June
Taiwan-based graphics-card makers Asustek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Albatron will begin volume shipments of their SLI-ready PCI Express (PCIe) x16 graphics cards based on the new NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics processor unit (GPU), previously called the G70, at the end of this month or the beginning of July, according to the companies.
Posted by | Sun, Jun 26, 2005 - 05:02 AM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processors Available For Those Willing To Pay
With AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processors now available and in stock for a couple weeks prices have yet to go down. During launch the prices were said to be going for $537, $581, $803, and $1001 respectively. By looking at today's pricing they are still going for a premium on the open market place.
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ - $1040.00
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ - $868.68
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ - $648.91
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ - $588.99
In other news the Intel Dual Core Intel 820 comes in at a cool $259 and our review sample overclocked from 2.8GHz to 3.8GHz. Although Intel's performance may be a tad slower than AMD's X2 processors they are going for half the price. Interesting how in just a few years AMD went from being the working mans processor to being the high dollar glass case CPU that many can't afford and Intel went the other direction. Just something to think about before everyone heads home from work for the day.
Posted by | Thu, Jun 23, 2005 - 02:04 PM
VOIP Regulations May Soon Be Coming
As both Congress and the Supreme Court consider telecom regulations, Internet applications such as VOIP could be headed for government rules and taxes, industry experts warned today.
During a policy panel here at the Supernova conference Wednesday, representatives from the telecommunications and Internet industries said the issue of whether to regulate and tax VOIP and other applications running on IP networks is coming to a head.
The U.S. Congress this year is revisiting the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which had set out an intricate set of rules for attempting to deregulate telecom. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to rule in the next week on a case known as "Brand X" that could determine whether broadband Internet over cable should follow the line-sharing regulations that govern telecom carriers.
Posted by | Thu, Jun 23, 2005 - 06:37 AM