Legit Reviews News History

AMD Readies Socket M2 for Forthcoming Processors

" Advanced Micro Devices has always been very reluctant to change mainboards infrastructure for its processors, but the things may change when the company introduces its next-generation Socket M2 next year, two years after it brought Socket 939 out, according to the slides over the Internet that resemble AMD?s roadmap.

The Socket M2 is set to be introduced across the range of AMD desktop microprocessors, including performance, mainstream and value chips, in the first half of 2006. The chips that will be intended for the Socket M2 infrastructure are currently known under Windsor, Orleans and Manila code-names. Thermal and other specifications for the Socket M2 products are unknown, but it is known that all of such central processing units are to be produced using 90nm silicon-on-insulator fabrication process."

X-Bit Labs

Posted by | Fri, Jan 28, 2005 - 02:40 AM | Comments

Intel's Recently Registered Patents Cause Disputes

" Intel Corp., world?s largest maker of microprocessors, recently applied for its new trademarks that various observers called mysterious ? Intel Inside VIIV and Intel VIIV. No one truly knows what the mystifying letters VIIV mean and different versions mean very dissimilar things: from 64-bit computing to dual-core CPU designs or even platfoms with certain technologies implemented. 

?Intel Inside VIIV? and ?Intel VIIV? were registered late last year by Intel?s attorney Cynthia R. Adwere. The meaning of the letters/numbers is unclear and Intel Corp.?s official spokesperson decline to comment on the matter."

X-Bit Labs

Posted by | Fri, Jan 28, 2005 - 02:39 AM | Comments

Kingmax makes mint out of ancient memory

" THERE'S GOLD in ten-year-old technology, according to memory module manufacturer, Kingmax. Despite offering cutting-edge DDR-II and mainstream DDR-I modules, Kingmax is still able to generate about 20 percent of its revenue from the truly ancient SDRAM. The reason, says sales and marketing VP, Lawrence Chang, is that hardly anybody else is making them.

As a result, Kingmax netted about US$50 million last year from a business that most others have written off, that's out of the company's total memory module revenue of around $250 million. In addition, profit margins on SDRAM are better than they were when the memory standard was in its prime, and better than those on DDR."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Fri, Jan 28, 2005 - 02:34 AM | Comments

Pocketful of porn

"Is that a porn star in your pocket, or is it just your phone ringing?

Wow. In hindsight, maybe we should've seen this coming. Last week we reported that adult film star Jenna Jameson was featured in print ads for iRiver's portable media players.

Now it seems the entrepreneurial starlet is charging forth with a new technology venture: selling "moantones" for mobile phones. Mobile-entertainment company Wicked Wireless announced late last week that it has partnered with Jameson to offer several mobile-content services to TelCel Telefonica customers in Central and South America."

CNET News

Posted by | Thu, Jan 27, 2005 - 07:29 AM | Comments

nForce 4 TCQ Data Corruption Issue?

" It appears there might be a data corruption problem when enabling TCQ on the nForce 4 chipset at least with the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. Check out this forum post for more detais. I've yet to try TCQ as all of our Western Digital Raptors are in a server. You can learn about TCQ in this pdf from Western Digital. Anyway you may want to take some caution when enabling TCQ and make sure you do have a backup. Here is a post from sadtherobot on the alledged issue. "

AMDZone

Posted by | Thu, Jan 27, 2005 - 05:18 AM | Comments

ATI is Worlds Biggest Graphics Supplier for 2004

" New Mercury Research market share numbers released today for Q4 2004 show ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX: ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT) was the world's largest discrete graphics supplier in 2004. ATI continues to move forward with six sequential quarters of year over year growth - shipping over half of the world's discrete graphics.

"With a virtual clean sweep of OEM PCI Express designs on desktop and notebook PCs, ATI continues to lead the market for discrete graphics," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, PC Business Unit, ATI Technologies. "In addition, we've ramped volume production of the RADEON® X800XL and RADEON® X850 series to put ATI in the best position to increase performance and market share leadership for high-end DirectX 9 graphics processors.""

TechNewsWorld

Posted by | Thu, Jan 27, 2005 - 05:13 AM | Comments

AV firm warns of fresh Bagle variant

" SECURITY FIRM F-Secure said it has issued a level two alert for a variant of Bagle which it said is propagating like crazy across the world.

The firm said Bagle.AT is a polymorphic worm arriving in emails and with a number of different headers.

It's similar to the other Bagles around, and attaches itself to emails as a .EXE file with .com, .exe, .scr and .cpl extensions."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Thu, Jan 27, 2005 - 05:10 AM | Comments

DoJ to investigate Longhorn

" US FEDERAL and state antitrust regulators are to meet with Microsoft to have a quiet word about some of the antitrust problems that might arise if Vole releases Longhorn. According to PC World magazine, the Department of Justice (DoJ) is apparently hoping to see off a repeat of the long-running US DoJ vs Microsoft antitrust case. The meeting will come as part of the existing DoJ agreement with Vole. It will include a court-appointed technical committee which has been in charge of monitoring Microsoft's operating system.

According to a court report which has been released, the plaintiffs have prepared a list of topics relating to Longhorn, enabling early detection and resolution of any potential areas of concern."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Thu, Jan 27, 2005 - 05:07 AM | Comments

AMD readies launch of Sempron 3300+ 754

" IT'S NO SECRET that AMD is set to convert all of its cut down Sempron microprocessors to a 754 pin format during the course of this year.

But our information is that a 754 pin Sempron 3300+ is rolling out this quarter, while it will also produce a Sempron 3200+ using 939 pins for certain accounts only.

How imminent is the 754 pin 3300+? Some motherboard companies have already released updates to 754 board BIOSes during this week.

So we suspect it's not that far off. We also understand that AMD will roll out a series of road shows this March demonstrating its dual core processors."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Thu, Jan 27, 2005 - 05:06 AM | Comments

The mid-week review roundup

Today's Must Read Review:

Insanetek has a nice write up of OCZ's PC3200 Enhanced Latency Platinum Edition Revision 2. Does the performance match the impressive name?

 "Today we have OCZ's Enhanced Latency Platinum Revision 2 PC3200.
OCZ's EL series focuses on low latencies at all of their rated speeds,
making it an overclocker's dream.  The Platinum series is just one of the
many groups of memory that OCZ produces.  OCZ's primary goal is customer
satisfaction and their warranty assures that.  OCZ does not only produce
memory, but power supplies, cooling solutions, and a DDR booster, which
allows the user to adjust memory voltage higher than what many motherboards
allow.  Read on to find out just how well the Platinum PC3200 Rev2
performs."

Other Reviews Today:

 

Posted by | Wed, Jan 26, 2005 - 11:53 PM | Comments

Microsoft extends grip on Windows XP licensing

" SOFTWARE FIRM Microsoft is taking further steps to protect its intellectual property by cutting down on upgrades available for pirate copies of Windows XP.

The firm announced its plans in the USA yesterday, confirming our earlier story from last October.

Its "Genuine Advantage" scheme means that non legitimate version of XP won't get any upgrades apart from security fixes."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Wed, Jan 26, 2005 - 03:38 AM | Comments

Athlon 64 FX55 Named Best Desktop Processor

" AMD announced today that high-tech market research firm In-Stat selected the AMD Athlon(tm) 64 FX-55 processor as best desktop processor of 2004. In-Stat Microprocessor Report recognized the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor for its superior performance, feature-rich architecture, support for 32- and 64-bit capability and Enhanced Virus Protection. The newsletter from In-Stat is now available online at www.in-stat.com.

"The AMD Athlon 64 FX processor delivers the best in performance of any desktop PC processor available today, consistently posting some of the highest industry benchmark ratings since its introduction in 2003," said Jim McGregor, principal analyst and editor of the Microprocessor Report, In-Stat. "As a leading provider of research, assessments and market forecasts, In-Stat recognizes the innovation of the AMD64 architecture with support for 64-bit applications, an integrated memory controller, and HyperTransport(tm) technology interfaces that offer future enhancements in performance for both single-core and multi-core processor designs."

"Industry accolades from leading market research firm In-Stat demonstrate that the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor continues to reign supreme as the absolute best overall PC processor you can get," said Marty Seyer, corporate vice president and general manager, Microprocessor Business Unit, Computation Products Group, AMD. "By continuing to uphold the performance crown since its arrival more than a year ago, AMD continues to deliver on its promise to provide professional users, performance-hungry enthusiasts and gamers a superior computing experience with the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor series." "

AMDZone

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 06:21 PM | Comments

Most-Recent Market Reports Shows Gap Between ATI and NVIDIA Shrinking

" The most-recent study from leading market tracking company Mercury Research shows that the market share gap between leading graphics processors suppliers ATI Technologies and NVIDIA Corp. is closing, as the latter gains share across all segments, while the former loses parts of the markets it controls. Still, both firms as well as market leader Intel Corp. enjoy shipments growth. "

X-Bit Labs

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 06:18 PM | Comments

Via prepares to raise processor clock frequency to 2 GHz

Via Technologies is preparing to improve the performance of its CPU family to achieve a 2-GHz clock frequency this year, which would help allay some user complaints that its low-power benefits don't completely make up for its lack of horsepower.

EE Times

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 06:15 PM | Comments

Google hires Firefox programmer

Ben Goodger, one of the key figures of Mozilla Foundation and a programmer for the Firefox browser, posted about his newly acquired job for the search giant Google in his blog earlier today.

According to the blog post, his goals will remain unchanged at Mozilla Foundation, and he will continue to push and work on the browser?s future versions.

Users and analysts are now hoping for a word from Google about its upcoming plans, since many believe that Google will launch its own browser in the near future. Google, however, declined such speculations and stated that the search giant will create plug-ins or extensions for the Firebox browser to take full advantage of its search technology.

According to numerous industry analysts, this may be the beginning of Google?s branded browser in-the-not-so distant future. Analysts are still a bit skeptical about its success, though. They said Google would have to offer their browser free of charge if they want user interest. And they will have to keep the code as simplified as Mozilla?s Firefox browser.

Cool Tech Zone

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 06:08 PM | Comments

The Consequence of Waking Up a Sleeping Giant: Intel Roadmaps Inside

"Anand and I got particularly antsy this month to get an Intel roadmap up - this month's changes look nothing short of spectacular. When we look at some of our other Intel roadmaps in retrospect, there are very few new developments outside of the Smithfield and Yonah announcements. This month looks completely different however; new processor announcements and details in Q1'06, chipset information and - for the first time in a very long time - most of Intel's processor roadmap has moved up, ahead of schedule.

It takes time to realign a huge corporation such as Intel, and we can guess that the recent roadmaps have been the proverbial "calm before the storm". Intel doesn't normally make a lot of noise about major changes in the public as that can lead to reduced sales of current products. However, with AMD making some inroads against Intel and the lackluster retail reception of current 915/925 chipsets, that may not be as much of concern right now. Another possibility is that Intel was working feverishly on some new products and they are now confident enough of their release dates to add them to their roadmaps."

AnandTech

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 06:05 PM | Comments

Site Maintenance Coming

I just wanted to inform all of our readers that the site is going down tonight for some server maintenance.  We are planning on powering them down on Saturday, January 29, 2005 12:00 AM PST -- Saturday, January 29, 2005 4:00 AM PST.  We will also be making some other changes on our server till then, so if the site seems slow this is the reason why.

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 03:43 PM | Comments

Longhorn graphics engine exposed

" THERE IS HUGE interest over Microsoft's next generation Windows Longhorn operating system and people are just as interested in its graphic engine. It's called Avalon and will represent the next step forward in graphic engines, the Vole believes.

Avalon consists of a display engine and a managed code framework. For the first time, Avalon will unify how Windows creates displays and manipulates documents, media and the user interface.

On its official web pages, Microsoft revealed that it's committed to shipping Avalon in 2006. When Microsoft finishes Avalon, it will be available for Windows XP, Windows Server 2005 and all future releases of Windows. It's safe to add Longhorn to this list."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 04:13 AM | Comments

ATI's R520 to arrive in May

" ATI PLANS to introduce its brand new R520 technology exactly a year after it announced its R420. Despite the news that ATI might even be ready with R520 for CeBIT, it seems that the company wants to hold its breath and try to release the silicon in May.

We already said that the R520 taped out and our sources confirm that the chip is in good shape, but then again it's still the first working silicon that it got out of the fab. It takes at least six weeks to get the next revision of silicon. This means that ATI is still on track and will possibly make one more revision before it goes to final production.

Our biggest concern about R520 is its manufacturing process. ATI will build it using a 90 nanometre process and this might be tricky. Shifting to a smaller process is always problematical, not automatical. Remember Nvidia's adventure with the NV30 where it ended up with ill starred consequences and subsequent unavailability? ATI is very optimistic over its decision, however. ATI likes to be more conservative and doesn't like to risk it for a frisket. Just look at its X800 110 nanometre chips, for example."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Tue, Jan 25, 2005 - 01:22 AM | Comments

Monday's reviews from around the web

Today's Must Read Review:

 Looking for a good after market cooling solution for your video card? Adrian's Rojak Pot  has just posted the Zalman VF700-Cu GPU Cooler Review. When Nate and I were in Dallas for the Winter CPL, these seemed to be the cooler of choice for all the display systems, as well as all the Abit gaming rigs. 

 " We have already taken a look at the new Zalman VF700-AlCu GPU
cooler. Silent cooling and better performance was what it delivered. But
can we get more out of its unique flower heatsink design?

Today, we take a look at the full-copper version - the Zalman VF700-Cu
GPU cooler! Let's see how much better it is over the hybrid AlCu! "

 Zalman VF700-Cu GPU Cooler @  Adrian's Rojak Pot

Other Reviews Today:

 

Posted by | Mon, Jan 24, 2005 - 04:17 PM | Comments

Windows 64 to arrive in April

" SOURCES CLAIMED Microsoft is planning to introduce its 64 bit operating system for Intel and AMD processors (iAMD64) on the 29th of April. The sources are close to Microsoft.

It appears there will be a release to manufacturing version of WinXP 64 in March. That's the stage before the CDs get stamped out and the boxes get printed.

Quite coincidentally, Intel will finally be ready with its full line of 64 bit capable CPUs, including Celeron 64s, close to that date. This, of course, is entirely coincidental and is just the way things can spookily happen at the same time in our industry."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Mon, Jan 24, 2005 - 03:33 PM | Comments

DDR2 great says Crucial: AMD disagrees

" WE'VE HAD the diamond geezers from Crucial on the blower today, telling us that their new Tracer memory is now available in DDR2 667 and DDR1 500 speeds.

The Tracer line of Ballistix modules from Crucial, a division of Micron, features top-specced RAM with funky flashing LEDs on top. The RAM is low latency, making it perfect for overclockers looking to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their system. That's what Crucial reckons, anyhoo.

For the hardcore users, Crucial is offering this memory in 1GB sticks, meaning you can easily equip your ninja rig with 4GB of system RAM, should you have the wonga and the nerve to withstand the flashing lights."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Mon, Jan 24, 2005 - 03:32 PM | Comments

Intel indicates prices for Smithfield, 64-bit 600 CPUs

Some great news on these prices! Budget builders will be able to get one of these dual-core Pentium ?'s for under US$250! Now, if only AMD could leak some news like this...

"Three versions of the dual-core CPU, with clock speeds of 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2GHz, will be available at US$241, US$316 and US$530 as model numbers 820, 830 and 840, respectively, although it is still not clear if Intel will be adding a product name preceding the model number."

DigiTimes Daily IT News

Posted by | Mon, Jan 24, 2005 - 03:19 PM | Comments

TV Celebrity Johnny Carson Dies at 79

"(CNN) -- Johnny Carson, host of NBC's "The Tonight Show" for nearly 30 years, died Sunday of emphysema. "He passed away this morning," Carson's nephew, Jeffrey Sotzing, told CNN. Carson, a longtime smoker, was 79 and had announced in 2002 that he was suffering from the disease."

CNN

Posted by | Sun, Jan 23, 2005 - 02:58 PM | Comments

Weekend Update...News and Reviews from around the web.

Today's Must Read Review:   "Overclocking the Pentium M: Silent Powerhouse"

 I'm personally thinking Intel's "Dothan" CPU is going to be a hot topic over the next month or two as this processor is showing some pretty incredible results.

 "One of Intel´s latest CPU runs at 1.6ghz, no there is no typo
here, the Pentium M normally intended for laptops have been given a
chance to shine in desktop systems also with the help of resourceful
motherboard manufactures. We take a closer look at DFI´s offering to
see how far we overclock this new "Dothan" CPU."

 Overclocking the Pentium M: Silent Powerhouse @ Madshrimps 

Other Reviews Today:

Posted by | Sun, Jan 23, 2005 - 04:08 AM | Comments

Via Shows First dual processor Mini ITX board

Today at the VIA meetings i have seen a bunch of stuff I can't talk about till next week, but I can show off the first ever Dual CPU Mini ITX board!  In the forums I posted up pictures and some info on the new dual CPU board.  I'll bring you more updates over the day if anything else happens. 

Legit Forums

Posted by | Sat, Jan 22, 2005 - 12:20 PM | Comments

Linux bites Windows hard

"AN ARTICLEBusiness Week tracks how Linux is doing against Microsoft Windows and concludes it's biting the Vole, hard.

While Microsoft is throwing gazillions into a campaign to counter Linux, the report claims that a number of events have conspired to make the cooperative venture stronger, rather than weaker."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Fri, Jan 21, 2005 - 12:57 PM | Comments

AMD readies Taylor, Trinidad and Socket S1, M1

" CHIP FIRM AMD said in documents seen by the INQ that while its Lancaster 25W and 35W mobile socket 754 is scheduled for Q1 of this year, it has some other product offerings on its table.

Never forget that Turion - known as [Cen]Turion to the INQ - has a similar flying glyph to the Intel Centrino brand, and is a brand umbrella, not a single chip, just like Chipzilla's parasol. But Turion isn't as important to AMD as Ivanhoe* - which is the real secret weapon in AMD's branding plans.

If AMD sticks to its Ivanhoe last, this will be a way to change people's mind about Centrino. AMD internal market research shows most of us dumb consumers think Centrino is a processor, proving how successful Intel has been. There will probably be a logo launch for "Ivanhoe"."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Fri, Jan 21, 2005 - 12:55 PM | Comments

Abit reaches tentative agreement with creditor banks

Believe it or not today ABIT stocks went up!  For the first time in over a week ABIT stocks regain some of the ground lost over the past couple months. ABIT stock rose to $1.59, which is a +6.71% net gain on the overall stock price.  One of the factors as to why the stock price went up may be due to the news story below.

"Abit Computer has reached a tentative agreement with its creditor banks, allowing it to use its funds deposited at the banks as well as access to banks? credit lines available to the company, sources at the motherboard maker said yesterday.

Abit?s deposits and its credit lines, or the amount of short-term revolving funds the company can get from banks with its credit, which totaled NT$4.7 billion, were frozen by its creditor banks after the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) downgraded Abit stock to requiring full-delivery in mid-December, amid allegations of fraud at the motherboard maker.

Abit had total short-term assets equivalent to NT$1.65 billion in cash at the end of November last year, and part of these assets was deposited at the banks, according to data released by Abit. However, the company did not specify how much cash had been frozen by its creditor banks."

DigiTimes Daily IT News

Posted by | Thu, Jan 20, 2005 - 11:03 PM | Comments

Intel Says New Mobile Chip Equals High-End Pentium 4 in Performance

"During this week's launch of the Sonoma Centrino technology, Mooly Eden, vice president and director of marketing of Intel's new Mobility Group, demonstrated a video game on a new Sonoma laptop and compared its performance to that of the same video game running on a Pentium 4 desktop PC. The Sonoma design contains the Pentium M processor, the new Alviso chip set with support for the PCI Express interconnect technology and DDR2 (Double Data Rate 2) memory, and an Intel Pro/Wireless chip. Intel brands the package as Centrino mobile technology.

 Notebook PCs based on the most powerful version of Intel's Centrino mobile technology now perform just as well as desktop PCs with Intel's fastest Pentium 4 processors, according to an Intel executive.

In the demonstration, the performance of a Sonoma system with a 2.13-GHz Pentium M processor, 1GB of memory, and the Alviso chip set was said to be comparable to that of a desktop system carrying a 3.6-GHz Pentium 4 processor with hyperthreading, 1GB of memory, and the Grantsdale chip set (which also supports PCI Express and DDR2). Intel had previously compared the high end of its notebook technology to the midrange of its desktop technology."

PCWORLD.com

Posted by | Thu, Jan 20, 2005 - 09:19 PM | Comments

Intel times 64 bit CPUs to arrive with WinXP Pro X64

" IF YOU ASK either Intel or AMD when Microsoft will launch WinXP Pro X64, executives from both firms will look at you for a little while, tilt their eyeballs slightly upwards, and then look at you straight in the eye and intone the mantram: "You will have to ask Microsoft about the release of its products".

Does this mean that Intel and AMD don't know when the date is? We find this hard to believe. The last we heard, the very long awaited OS that will support iAMD64 was scheduled to appear at the end of the first quarter."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Thu, Jan 20, 2005 - 10:15 AM | Comments

Abit wins big deal in UK

Looks like the bit of good news Abit is getting isn't having much effect on their stock, which continues to spiral downward. Kind of amazing when you consider the popularity of their products

Yahoo Finance

"DESPITE THE FINANCIAL drama that is happening to Abit in Taiwan, we hear that there are some positive things happening. We heard that the Abit motherboard and graphic division is making profit for quite some time and that there are no reasons for being worried about its future.

One strong fact to support this argument comes from top retail hardware shop chain PC World. It made a deal with Abit where it will start selling Abit graphic card on its shelves. This will make Abit one of the two manufacturers who are making ATI based graphic cards and selling in PC World stores. The second one is, we believe, Sapphire. Actually we saw some Sapphire cards in the shelves of a PC World store the other day in London.

Knowing that PC World is a serious retail chain store we don?t think that it would go into serious businesses with financially weak Abit.

Abit wants to make its graphic card line stronger than it is now and wants to become a serious player in this league. It's not that easy knowing the ATI chip food chain but the boys and girls from Abit are real fighters.

You can see here what the UK retail market looks like and that Sapphire is the only ATI partner that sold any serious quantities in retail for the Yule period while the others prefer to go for etail.

Abit also wants to promote its cards such is Fatal1ty X700XT and other upcoming Fatal1ty cards, because they are actually different from other ATI reference based cards."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Thu, Jan 20, 2005 - 12:33 AM | Comments

Afternoon Reviews

Today's Must Read Review:  Intel Sonoma Mobile Platform Launched

 Adrian's Rojak Pot has just posted the Intel Sonoma Mobile Platform Review! Legit Reviews was the first to do a public showing on it and Adrian's is the first to review it!

"Today, we take a close look at the new Sonoma mobile platform as well as the spanking new Techdos and Fujitsu Sonoma notebooks! Be the first to read about Sonoma and why it will change mobile computing as we know it..."

Intel Sonoma Mobile Platform Review  @  Adrian's Rojak Pot

Other Reviews Today:

 

Posted by | Wed, Jan 19, 2005 - 01:35 PM | Comments

NVIDIA's SLI Shortchanges Gamers?

" According to NVIDIA?s marketing, NVIDIA?s Scalable Link Interface (SLI) "can deliver as much as 2x the performance of a single GPU configuration for unparalleled gaming experiences." What NVIDIA fails to make clear, however, is that SLI currently requires NVIDIA to write driver profiles for each game to support SLI. Are all the games you want to play supported? "

HardOCP

Posted by | Wed, Jan 19, 2005 - 12:58 AM | Comments

Firefox gains on Internet Explorer

" figures from web-monitoring outfit WebSideStory show that the use of the open sauce browser Firefox use has more than doubled in the last three months.

Apparently Firefox has a startling huge five per cent of users in comparison to Vole's 90 per cent.

But before anyone get too excited and exercised, and starts writing off Internet Explorer as a has been, the five per cent figure that Firefox has is exactly the same percentage chance of a person dying in a space accident. See here."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Wed, Jan 19, 2005 - 12:55 AM | Comments

AMD to upgrade memory controller

" ONE MORE BIT ABOUT AMD and memory to expand on yesterday's DDR2 story. One of the biggest updates to the E0 step Athlon64s that will be announced soon is the memory controller.

The new parts support double sided DIMMs in all slots at DDR-400. Previously you had to drop to DDR-333 or take your chances. Now it should just work. It will probably also be faster, but I have yet to see numbers."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Tue, Jan 18, 2005 - 02:29 PM | Comments

Intel's dual-core CPUs to set new record

" Intel's upcoming dual-core processors once again will test the limits of power consumption. According to documents seen by Tom's Hardware Guide, the Smithfield CPUs are rated at a thermal design power of 130 watts, an increase of 13 percent from today's Prescott processors. "

TechConnect Magazine

Posted by | Tue, Jan 18, 2005 - 02:27 PM | Comments

ATI to launch R481 soon

" EVEN THOUGH RIALTO should be ready in the next few days, ATI decided to make one more AGP high end chip. We were surprised when we saw a R481 chip listed but it hasn't taken us long to find out more about it.

R481 is a R480, for the Radeon X850 with an AGP interface. ATI won't bridge this chipm it will make it nativem as ATI decided to do native chips as long as it makes sense to do so. We heard this from the ATI CEO back at Computex 2004. "

The Inquirer

Posted by | Tue, Jan 18, 2005 - 02:25 PM | Comments

Throttle Watch 2.0 released

Panopsys has released a new version of Throttle Watch. The utility now monitor's AMD64 CPU's as well as Pentium-4, Pentium-M, and Xeon. Download the free version here.

"ThrottleWatch? is a Windows utility for detecting and reporting CPU throttling activity in Pentium 4, Xeon, Pentium M, and Athlon 64 processors.   New version 2.0 also graphs (and optionally logs) fluctuations in the CPU's core frequency and core voltage made by Intel SpeedStep? Technology, Intel Enhanced SpeedStep? Technology, and AMD Cool?n?Quiet? Technology."

Panopsys

Posted by | Tue, Jan 18, 2005 - 06:10 AM | Comments

Dual core Intel chips like Bunsen burners, almost

"TOM'S HARDWARE Guide claims it's seen internal Intel documents that show Intel Smithfield dual core chips have a thermal design rated at 130 watts.

That's 13 per cent more than Intel's current 5xx Prescott range, claims The Pabster.

Supply current, said the site, will go from 119 amps to 125 amps, while the processors will consume more power than an Itanium 2, which eats up 122 watts.

The site claims that the Pentium 4 560, a 3.6GHz which eats 115 watts, runs at the thermal limits, and it's obvious that Smithfields will need even more cooling."

The Inquirer

Posted by | Tue, Jan 18, 2005 - 01:00 AM | Comments

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