LR News History - Legit Reviews

Legit Reviews News History

HP introduces lightweight business laptops

Hewlett-Packard has announced a line of portable lightweight computers aimed at business travelers to compete with a product range announced by rival Dell Inc last week. HP said it expected the HP EliteBook 2530p and HP EliteBook 2730p to become available by early September, with estimated prices of $1,499 and $1,670, respectively.

HP said on Monday that the lineup included the EliteBook 2530p, which is the smallest and lightest of its computers with a weight of just over 3 pounds and an extended battery life. The company said its EliteBook 2730p is an ultra-thin computer that converts to a touch-screen pen-based tablet computer with a twist of its screen and weighs 3.7 pounds.

Reuters Technology News

Posted by | Mon, Aug 18, 2008 - 10:12 AM | Comments

REALTIME WORLDS PUTS OUT AN APB FOR NVIDIA PHYSX TECHNOLOGY

Often underappreciated by those who only casually play games, fast and accurate physical models and calculations are a key to a game’s playability and realism. From the effect of explosions on nearby objects, to the impacts of car accidents, to how a character reacts when hit, physics is as important to realism as high-quality graphics. Because of this, Realtime Worlds’ upcoming massively multiplayer online game, APB, will take advantage of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs and PhysX technology to enhance the game’s free-form combat and real-time driving environments.

“Realtime Worlds, by our very name, defines what games we aim to create,” said Dave Jones, the CEO of Realtime Worlds. “APB is a vastly ambitious project, combining the key elements of action gameplay in a living, breathing world with millions of players around the globe. In order to fully realise the vision of APB, it was essential to include next-generation physics in our game world. This is why we choose to standardize our development on GeForce GPUs and NVIDIA PhysX technology, the combination of which has given our developers the power and freedom to deliver the first action and physics based combat gameplay into the massively multiplayer online space.”

Posted by | Mon, Aug 18, 2008 - 10:09 AM | Comments

August 18 News from Around the Web

Gigabyte EP-45 Extreme Review @ OCC and other reviews from around the web can be found in our forums!

"Overall, I would have to say that the limited edition Gigabyte EP-45 Extreme is the best motherboard that I've ever used for overclocking. The BIOS was simple to navigate, and Gigabyte's Dual BIOS technology really gives the user some peace of mind knowing that if they screw one BIOS up, another BIOS is right there for them to use. The LED readout is an overclocker's dream, because it allows us to see where the issues are if the system isn't booting. For me, the memory was what was holding my overclocking back. I was able to obtain an FSB speed of 500MHz, which is extremely good, considering four threads of data are being sent through the Northbridge at 500MHz x 7 (3.5GHz). I don't think I've ever hit 500 on a motherboard due to some sort of bottleneck of the CPU or memory."

Posted by | Mon, Aug 18, 2008 - 09:59 AM | Comments

AMD Says Intel Nehalem Microarchitecture Copied Their Design

Today, AMD’s top CPU and GPU executives, Randy Allen and Rick Bergman, covered a number of key industry topics that are sure to get lots of attention during IDF in a conference call with the press today. They disclosed the usual AMD news about upcoming products, but this slide took the cake. AMD included the slide as a joke and mentioned that imitation is the greatest form of flattery!!

Posted by | Fri, Aug 15, 2008 - 12:50 PM | Comments

CoolIT Announces Water Cooling Kit For Radeon 4870 X2 GPUs

CoolIT Systems late yesterday announced the Dual Drive Bay VGA Cooler designed to aggressively cool AMD’s new ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Graphics card. The unique form factor enables extreme computing performance for PC Enthusiasts and Gamers. In recent testing, the liquid cooled cards were stably clocked up to 880MHz (13.5% Increase) core clock speed and the GDDR5 memory pushed to 1GHz (11% increase). I'm not sure how they did the math, but with reference GPU clock is 750MHz, so that is a 17% increase. The results, if correct, seem to be better than what we were able to do with the reference cooler in our recent review on the Radeon HD 4870 X2.

"The liquid cooling technology that AMD co-developed with CoolIT provides superior cooling protection for users who want to operate their ATI Radeon graphics processors at high clock speeds for extended periods of time,” said Dr. Gamal Refai-Ahmed, AMD Fellow and Chief Thermal Architect, AMD Graphics Product Group. “By delivering an innovative, compelling solution inside a unique form factor, CoolIT helps enable ATI Radeon graphics processors to perform at high levels.”

Posted by | Fri, Aug 15, 2008 - 07:50 AM | Comments

VIA lands roughly 500,000 Nano processor orders from Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has reportedly recently place orders for VIA Technologies' Nano CPUs the chipmaker has already started shipping. However, it is currently unknown whether HP will use the CPUs in its mainstream notebooks or netbook series, according to sources from the PC industry.

VIA has commented that in addition to previous orders from vendors in China, the company has recently landed orders from a certain first-tier notebook vendor and the product will appear in the market by October this year. As for VIA's C7-M processor which is used in HP's 2133 Mini-Note PC, the total volume that HP ordered has already reached 500,000 units, which indicates that HP expects to ship at least 500,000 2133 Mini-Note PCs by the end of this year, noted the sources.

DigiTimes Daily IT News

Posted by | Fri, Aug 15, 2008 - 07:24 AM | Comments

T-Mobile to offer first Android smartphone

Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone based on Google Inc's Android software, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the company's plans.

The phone is expected to go on sale in the U.S. before Christmas and perhaps as early as October, the paper said.

Reuters Technology News

Posted by | Fri, Aug 15, 2008 - 07:22 AM | Comments

OCZ Announces New Solid State Drive (SSD) - Core Series V2 SATA II

Responding the demands of enthusiasts and high-performance mobile computing consumers, OCZ Technology has unveiled the newest addition to their industry-leading OCZ Core Series SATA II 2.5” Solid State Drives. The Core Series has established OCZ as a pioneer in the SSD market by offering consumers the benefits of solid drives technology at an affordable price. With the industry continuously shifting in this direction, OCZ strives to place its Core Series at the forefront.

Featuring new architecture, the Core Series SSD V2 will be available in up to a massive 250GB capacity and delivers enhanced speeds of up to 170 MB/s read and 98 MB/s write speeds with an improved seek time of less than 0.2-0.3ms, making the Core V2 significantly faster when it comes to both Read/Write and seek-time performance. The addition of a mini-USB port also makes it possible for customers in the field to update the Core V2’s firmware should new versions become available, to further enhance compatibility or performance with future platforms.

Posted by | Fri, Aug 15, 2008 - 07:20 AM | Comments

VIA Announces First Nano-ITX Board with VIA VX800 - EPIA N700

Today the team over at VIA announced the VIA EPIA N700, their first mainboard based on Nano-ITX form factor to feature the highly-integrated VX800 media system processor, which combines the north bridge and south bridge in a single chip. Featuring a 1.5GHz VIA C7 or 500MHz VIA Eden processor, the VIA EPIA N700 is the first Nano-ITX board to feature the latest VIA VX800 media system processor, offering system designers the perfect balance of ruthless miniaturization and uncompromising functionality. A picture of this new VIA EPIA N700 board can be seen below.

Compact, yet user friendly, the VIA EPIA N700 uses additional onboard ports to make system design of compact PCs easier; two S-ATA ports, a Gigabit LAN port, a COM port, two USB 2.0 ports and a VGA port are provided, with additional COM, LVDS and IDE support available through onboard pin-headers. With the VX800 offering an integrated DX9 graphics core and excellent hardware accelerated video playback, this compact, low heat, power-efficient board is the ultimate solution for designing low heat, compact systems. The VIA EPIA N700 is the lowest profile Nano-ITX board ever.

Posted by | Fri, Aug 15, 2008 - 06:36 AM | Comments

Lian Li launches PC-XB01 - Xbox 360 Chassis Replacement

Lian-Li is launching the PC-XB01 chassis for the Xbox 360 today. The XB01 is a chassis replacement for the XBox 360 chassis, which alleviates heating issues from hot components and reduces noise from vibrating optical drives in the original case design. The PC-XB01 requires DIY knowledge for the transfer of components, but once completed, heat will no longer be a factor in dampening your XBox 360 gaming experience. The Manufacturers Recommended Selling Price (MSRP) is set at $149USD and it is expected to be for sale later this month.

The Lian Li PC-XB01 is the perfect complement to the Xbox 360 to alleviate heating issues. The stylish exterior gives your product a sense of class and will fit in with almost any living room environment. Microsoft Inc is very strict on warranties, so it should be noted that you will not be able to return your product if you use the Lian Li PC-XB01 alternative. With that being said, you are less likely to have overheating.

Posted by | Thu, Aug 14, 2008 - 10:32 AM | Comments

NVIDIA Demonstrates First Fully Interactive GPU-Based Ray Tracer

Another industry first is in the works this week during SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles—NVIDIA is demonstrating the world's first fully interactive GPU-based ray tracer. Based purely on NVIDIA GPU technology, the ray tracer shows linear scaling rendering of a highly complex, two-million polygon, anti-aliased automotive styling application. To see more pictures from the demo follow the link below to the forum!

At three bounces, performance is demonstrated at up to 30 frames per second (fps) at HD resolutions of 1920x1080 for an image-based lighting paint shader, ray traced shadows, and reflections and refractions running on four next-generation Quadro GPUs in an NVIDIA Quadro Plex 2100 D4 Visual Computing System (VCS).

Posted by | Thu, Aug 14, 2008 - 10:25 AM | Comments

Intel desktop CPU plans updated - Q8200 and E5200 Coming Soon

Intel is planning to launch a 45nm quad-core CPU – Core 2 Quad Q8200 with a core frequency of 2.33GHz and price of US$224 in thousand-unit tray quantities by the end of August along with a new dual-core Pentium E5200 CPU at 2.5GHz and US$84. The company will also launch a 65nm Conroe-L-based Celeron 450 CPU at 2.2GHz and US$53, according to sources at motherboard makers.

In addition to launching new products, the company is also planning to offer a price drop in mid October for CPUs including the Q8200, which will drop from US$224 to US$203, Core 2 Quad Q6600 from US$193 to US$183, Core 2 Duo E7300 from US$133 to US$113, Pentium E2220 from US$84 to US$74 and Pentium E2200 from US$74 to US$64, noted the sources. In the third quarter of this year, Intel's 45m Core 2 Quad CPU series will account for 6% of the company's total desktop CPU shipments, while 45nm Core 2 Duo E8000 and E7000 series will account for around 16% and 13%, respectively. 45nm Pentium E5000 series will account for less than 2% and Atom 200 series only 3%.

DigiTimes Daily IT News

Posted by | Wed, Aug 13, 2008 - 09:25 AM | Comments

Nvidia Has First Loss in 6 Years, but Announces Buyback

Nvidia Corp., the second-largest maker of computer graphics chips, yesterday posted its first quarterly loss in six years. The shares jumped in late trading after the company said it boosted a share buyback program by $1-billion (U.S.). The second-quarter loss of $120.9-million, or 22 cents a share, compared with a profit of $172.7-million, or 29 cents, a year earlier, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia said yesterday. The stock was trading up nearly 11% when the market opened with this news.

"Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing. The desktop PC market around the world weakened during the quarter. And our miscalculation of competitive price position further pressured our desktop GPU business. We have a great product line-up and, having taken the necessary pricing actions, we are strongly positioned again. Our focus now is to drive cost improvements and to further enhance our competitiveness through the many exciting initiatives we have planned for the rest of the year," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "In contrast, the rest of our businesses did not exhibit the same dynamics as our desktop business. The notebook GPU, MCP, and Professional Solutions groups grew a combined 27 percent year-over year."

Posted by | Wed, Aug 13, 2008 - 09:24 AM | Comments

Rumor Says Nvidia Desktop Cards are Failing! G92 and G94 Cores in Question!

The Inq has posted up another story about faulty NVIDIA graphics cards and this time around they are making a big claim. They are saying that the Geforce 8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GS, mobile 8800's, most of the 9800 suffixes, and a few 9600 models are all failing at a higher than normal rate. They go on to say that all G92 and G94 variants are susceptible to the same problem - basically they are all defective. They don't give any specific details on the problem and some of their readers have commented on this. One reader left the comment; "I've been reading these articles with some interest but now your articles are starting to read like a vendetta [against NVIDIA]". We'll see what our research can dig up and post an update later today.

A little digging revealed what this, and more, is all about, and it's far uglier than just the 'notebook' version. It seems that four board partners are seeing G92 and G94 chips going bad in the field at high rates. If you know what failures look like statistically, they follow a Poisson distribution, aka a bell curve. The failures start out small, and ramp up quickly - very quickly. If you know what you are looking for, you can catch the signs early on. From the sound of the backchannel grumblings, the failures have been flagged already, and NV isn't playing nice with their partners.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 13, 2008 - 09:08 AM | Comments

Intel Responds to NVIDIA Talking Smack About Larrabee

It didn't take long for Intel to see our news post about NVIDIA takling about Intel's Larrabee chip and they have sent over a response for us to publish. They didn't directly answer the questions NVIDIA asked, but at least we know they are paying close attention to the situation!

Intel has never said the GPU is dying or that it is a shrinking market. We are happy that Nvidia thinks that Larrabee has 'enormous floating point processing power'. Although it should be specified that on top of this power, Larrabee's x86 architecture will make it easy to program too, allowing the world's programmers to harness that power.

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 09:07 PM | Comments

ASUS Announces World's Fastest EAH4870X2 Series

ASUS has today introduced the graphical solution for the latest generation of AMD dual RV770XT GPUs – the ASUS EAH4870X2/HTDI/2G – equipped with double GPUs and a massive 2G of on-board memory. Additionally, the ASUS EAH4870X2 TOP will be released soon with impressive performance results to provide superb gaming performance.

In line with the Rock Solid promise of high quality from ASUS, the second versions of the EAH4870X2 Series will come with several solutions to provide top quality graphic performances. These upgraded graphics cards will utilize a specially designed fansink to effectively dissipate heat away from both GPUs – enabling much more stable performances in comparison to reference designed single fansinks*. In addition, they will also be equipped with an EMI shield, which reduces EMI Interference by 66% for more stable signals; and DIP Spring Chokes will lower temperatures by 5~10°C in comparison to traditional Toroidal Coil Chokes.

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 08:14 PM | Comments

NVIDIA Speaks Out About Intel Larrabee - Stirs The Hornets Nest Some More!

NVIDIA doesn't seem too happy with the current noise about Larrabee and thought that it was time to address some of the questions they are getting from the media. They also went one step further and asked some of their own questions that they feel should be answered. This is well worth a read if you have been following Larrabee and NVIDIA's CUDA language. It sounds like those at Siggraph should have some good stories to tell!

Intel has spent a lot of energy telling the world that the GPU is dying or that it is not a growing market ‐ why then are they investing so heavily on Larrabee and talking so much about it? Larrabee, like NVIDIA GPUs, has enormous floating point processing power. Wouldn’t this encourage all the supercomputing clusters in the world to adopt GPU/Larrabee‐style architectures and subsequently hurt Intel’s CPU market?

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 07:01 PM | Comments

Asetek Announces Water Cooled ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Graphics

Asetek's LCLC liquid cooling solution is now available for AMD's much anticipated multi-GPU cards, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 family of graphics cards (codenamed R700).

"The days of computers that sound like jet aircraft taking off are over. Our award-winning, LCLC provides worry-free, aggressive thermal management for advanced gaming and graphics-intensive applications—especially those using multiple GPUs like AMD's latest R700-based graphics cards." When used as part of a Radeon HD 4870 X2 Crossfire configuration, the LCLC product consumes only two of the four PCI slots normally used, freeing up two slots for other configuration upgrades. End users now have additional configuration flexibility.

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 06:51 PM | Comments

AMD Launches World's Fastest Graphics Card

AMD today announced the world's fastest graphics card, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, advancing visual computing ever closer to eye-definition computing gaming and cinematic experiences and delivering a whopping 2.4 teraFLOPS of processing power. Also announced today is the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics card, delivering blistering performance at a compelling price point. My review on the card is nearly complete. I got the crazy idea to change test systems over the weekend, so I had to start from scratch for this review. The test platform has gone from an Intel X38 Express chipset based motherboard with DDR2 to an Intel X48 Express chipset with DDR3 memory. The NVIDIA SLI test system will now be the 790i SLI motherboard with DDR3 memory also. I've also started to include benchmark results from newer games like GRID and Devil May Cry 4. Check back later this afternoon for the review.

"The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series is proof that our graphics strategy is working. The response from OEMs, system integrators, game developers, press, and most importantly, from gamers regarding the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products has been incredibly positive. Now, only a few short weeks after the launch of those products, AMD reclaims the ultimate performance crown and continues to deliver winning products to market in the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series continues AMD technology leadership with support for DirectX 10.1, tessellation, and now 2GB of frame buffer. The new products join a line-up of stellar offerings, all of which are designed to give gamers experiences that approach eye-definition computing."

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 12:33 PM | Comments

NVIDIA Releases The GeForce Power Pack For Download

Starting today, any owner of a GeForce 8 Series or higher GPU can immediately discover the immersive playability that NVIDIA PhysX technology brings to PC gaming. This first of many planned “GeForce Power Packs” is a fascinating showcase of how PhysX technology is fundamentally changing video games and interactive entertainment and can be downloaded now!

By installing these drivers, GeForce owners can immediately experience much higher levels of interactivity, special effects, and realism on their PC. In addition, GeForce owners will love being able to run PhysX-accelerated applications faster on their GeForce GPU than on competitive GPUs. For example, in the PhysX-enabled levels of Unreal Tournament 3, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ runs 180% faster than on the AMD Radeon HD 4850.

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 11:09 AM | Comments

Kingston Technology Announces 32GB SDHC Flash Memory Card

Kingston Technology announced just hours ago that they are shipping a 32GB Elite Pro SDHC Flash memory card for use with today’s digital video camcorders and other high-resolution imaging devices. The new 32GB card is the largest capacity in Kingston’s Elite Pro line of SDHC cards, which currently includes 4-, 8- and 16GB capacities. The 32GB SDHC card (Kingston part #: SD4/32GB) has a suggested price of $308.00 (MSRP U.S.).

“With the growing popularity of digital video and the HD format, consumers continue to look for ways to extend recording times and maintain fast data transfer rates (DTR) to maximize the performance of their recording device,” said Wendy Lecot, Flash business manager, Kingston®. “Our new 32GB Elite Pro SDHC memory card is optimized to meet the demands of high capacity and fast write speeds to help consumers share their lives through the use of video, photography and other creative devices. With the addition of the 32GB capacity card, Kingston is at the forefront of offering a versatile line of SDHC solutions to solve a variety of needs in today’s digital imaging world.”

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 11:05 AM | Comments

WD Announces Backplane-Compatible Velociraptor SATA Hard Drive

Western Digital announced today that they are now shipping the new backplane-compatible WD VelociRaptor hard drive. The new backplane version of the WD VelociRaptor is specifically designed for 3.5-inch drive-based servers, PC and Mac computer enthusiasts and professional workstations that require the need for a backplane structure. WD VelociRaptor (model WD3000HLFS and WD1500HLFS) hard drives are available through select resellers and distributors. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 300 GB and 150 GB are $319.00 and $229.00 respectively. Be sure to check out our review on the VelociRaptor!

“We designed the latest version of the WD VelociRaptor due to the increasing amount of systems that require a backplane mounting system. We have had overwhelming demand of our WD VelociRaptor as it provides enthusiasts with the computing speed and capacity they thirst for,” said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD’s enterprise solutions storage business unit. “The new WD VelociRaptor further demonstrates WD’s commitment to the enthusiast and server market by delivering the greatest performance, compatibility, and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market.”

Posted by | Tue, Aug 12, 2008 - 10:58 AM | Comments

Intel to release four new midrange desktop processors on Monday

Intel says it plans to roll out a bevy of midrange processors, all built on its new 45-nanometer manufacturing process, on Monday. Looks like the Q9650, Q9400, E8600, and E7300 will be on sale starting tomorrow, but if you look around today you can already find them listed for sale on retailers sites.

The Core 2 Quad Q9650 heads the list of updated chips, according to Intel. It has a core clock speed of 3GHz, a 12MB level-2 cache, a 1333MHz front-side bus, and is rated at 95 watts. Generally, the larger the level-2 cache memory, the better the performance. The front-side bus (FSB) carries data between the processor and other silicon.

Posted by | Sun, Aug 10, 2008 - 07:16 AM | Comments

Rumor: Kingston investing in NAND flash controller maker 3S

Kingston Technology is said to be planning to subscribe to new shares issued by Solid State System (3S) – a NAND flash controller design house that is invested in by Toshiba – via a private placement, according to sources at memory makers

After investing in 3S, Kingston will have investments at three NAND flash controller design houses in Taiwan, Phison Electronics and Skymedi being the other two. The investment could also strengthen ties between Kingston and Toshiba, the sources pointed out. Industry watchers are not surprised about Kingston's investments given that NAND flash device vendors source NAND flash from various chipmakers meaning they require NAND flash controllers that comply with different specifications.

DigiTimes Daily IT News

Posted by | Fri, Aug 08, 2008 - 02:58 AM | Comments

Antec Introduces the Multimedia Station

Antec has launched the Multimedia Station, a high-performance computing kit that enables enthusiasts to upgrade existing PCs into complete multimedia centers. The Multimedia Station bundles include an IR receiver, a remote and media management software.

Antec Veris Multimedia Station Premier

Designed for users looking for the ultimate comfort, style and functionality from their home theater. In addition to a Deluxe Remote, the Multimedia Station Premier features a deluxe IR receiver designed to fit into two 5.25" drive bays. This receiver boasts an LCD display and a front media control panel with menu navigation, a volume control wheel and media playback buttons.

Posted by | Thu, Aug 07, 2008 - 03:55 PM | Comments

Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2008

Microsoft has released SQL Server 2008 database to its manufacturing partners, and has included the release of a new Web edition of the product aimed at its hosting partners, the company announced Wednesday. SQL Server 2008 has been in beta testing for some time now and is a continuation of Microsoft's efforts to boost SQL's Server's reputation as a database that is highly scalable and a pillar to Microsoft's "data platform."

In the very near term, Windows Essential Business Server (Centro) and Windows Small Business Server 2008 (Cougar) are due to ship this fall. Microsoft has said both products will be available by November 12. Both families are based on the Windows Server 2008 code base, and given that SQL Server 2008 finally hit RTM, are likely to include the latest version of Microsoft’s database, rather than SQL Server 2005 (which was the contingency plan if the SQL Server team didn’t manage to RTM soon enough).

Posted by | Thu, Aug 07, 2008 - 12:11 PM | Comments

Jobs Shakes Up Apple Management Over MobileMe

Sometimes being the mavericks of the tech industry is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has turned over leadership of MobileMe – a suite of features that works with Mac OS X Mail, iCal, and Address Book like MS Exchange – to the executive who heads iTunes. In the past, Apple has very rarely beta tested their software, but since this experience might make them rethink their position.

In the e-mail sent to workers on Monday, Jobs acknowledged that the launch of MobileMe "was not our finest hour," saying it "was simply not up to Apple's standards." He also noted that the service, which debuted on July 11 along with the iPhone 3G and the new App Store, needed more testing and should have been rolled out in phases.

Posted by | Thu, Aug 07, 2008 - 10:08 AM | Comments

OCZ Announces 'P45 Special' Memory Kits in 8GB and 16GB Capacities

Addressing the never ending need for greater amounts of system memory, OCZ Technology today announced all new “P45 Special” 4GB modules, a module density optimized specifically for Intel’s latest chipset. Available in 8GB and 16GB kits these kits are sure to create a buzz. Not many people need 16GB of memory on a desktop, but if you want your friends to have penis envy this is the way to do it. No word on pricing, but for those that need 16GB that shouldn't matter.

Ideal for workstations with 64-bit operating systems, the OCZ 8GB/16GB solutions allow users to take advantage of high density memory configurations when working with memory intensive design and multimedia applications. Graphic designers, CAD engineers, and music and video editing professionals will benefit from increased memory resources. OCZ’s ultra high density solutions enable Vista users to maximize the performance, while providing large amounts of memory to facilitate smooth game play for the latest DirectX-10 games.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 05:57 PM | Comments

AMD 790GX Motherboard Pictures - ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Foxconn

During the AMD CTO Summit they displayed a number of 790GX motherboards and now that the NDA has lifted I can show the pictures that I took of the motherboards. These four boards are all using the new 790GX and SB750 chipsets and wil be at retailers in the very near future.

Building on the momentum of the award-winning AMD 780G chipset, the AMD 790GX offers DirectX10 game compatibility, allowing casual gamers to enjoy advanced game performance, truly lifelike 3D graphics and dynamic interactivity in the latest game titles. Gamers looking to scale their performance with the addition of a discrete graphics card can achieve superior performance with ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology, harnessing the graphics power of both a discrete graphics card and the motherboard GPU in tandem. Performance players can scale even further with ATI CrossFireX graphics technology, powering multiple ATI Radeon discrete graphics cards, to further improve 3D performance. In addition, the AMD 790GX chipset is the third generation AMD chipset to feature AMD Overdrive, a simple user interface that brings performance tuning to the masses. With the latest AMD OverDrive feature, Advanced Clock Calibration, gamers can push the limits of their AMDPhenom Black Edition processors to extreme frequencies for added performance.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 01:46 PM | Comments

AMD Fusion Processor Details Leak - First CPU Codenamed Shrike

TGDaily has some interesting information on the upcoming AMD Fusion launch plans and how they have changed revently, which is a common thing in this industry. They say that the first Fusuon processor will basically be a dual-core Phenom processor with an RV800 GPU core all in one package that is code-named Shrike. Long live Shrike!

The first Fusion processor is code-named Shrike, which will, if our sources are right, consist of a dual-core Phenom CPU and an ATI RV800 GPU core. This news is actually a big surprise, as Shrike was originally rumored to debut as a combination of a dual-core Kuma CPU and a RV710-based graphics unit. A few more quarters of development time gave AMD time to continue working on a low-end RV800-based core to be integrated with Fusion. RV800 chips will be DirectX 10.1 compliant and are expected to deliver a bit more than just a 55 nm-40 nm dieshrink. While Shrike will debut as a 40 nm chip, the processor is scheduled to transition to 32 nm at the beginning of 2010 - not much later than Intel will introduce 32 nm - and serve as a stop-gap before the next-gen CPU core, code-named "Bulldozer" arrives.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 04:30 AM | Comments

AMD Talks about DirectX 11 and OpenCL Support for GPGPU

AMD today announced efforts to help further increase the ease and efficiency of software development using AMD Stream™ processing with an extensive set of upgrades planned for future versions of the Stream Software Development Kit (SDK). Through a series of updates to the SDK scheduled over the course of the next 18 months, AMD plans to add full support for DirectX 11, the next-generation suite of advanced APIs from Microsoft.

“Just as it ushered in the era of advanced 3-D gaming for the masses, DirectX is poised to be at the vanguard of the GPGPU revolution,” said Anantha Kancherla, manager of Windows desktop and graphics technologies, Microsoft. “DirectX 11 gives developers the power to more easily harness the astonishing capabilities of AMD GPUs for general purpose computation, and gives consumers an effortless way to experience all that AMD Stream has to offer, on the hundreds of millions of Microsoft Windows powered systems worldwide.”

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 04:19 AM | Comments

GIGABYTE Announces Ultimate IGP GA-MA790GP-DS4H Motherboard

GIGABYTE today announce the launch of the GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-DS4H, a brand new AMD AM2+ platform that is based on the just released AMD 790GX chipset. Gigabyte claims that this motherboard pushes the boundaries of integrated graphics performance and overclocking potential. THe board looks pretty slick.

Based on the newly released AMD 790GX chipset with onboard ATI Radeon™ HD 3300 graphics core, the GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-DS4H features 128MB of onboard DDR3 1333MHz SidePort Memory, allowing dedicated memory access for the integrated graphics for an added boost of up to 10~15% in graphics performance. In combination with the SidePort Memory, the onboard graphics is able to be overclocked above 1000MHz, allowing users to maximize their graphics performance and achieve 3DMARK06 scores of 2800+ and beyond.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 03:43 AM | Comments

Micron Introduces Next-Generation RealSSD

Micron Technology, today introduced its next-generation RealSSD solid state drives (SSDs) for enterprise computing and notebook applications. The new drives--the enterprise-class RealSSD P200 and the client-focused RealSSD C200--provide a dramatic improvement in capacity, power and performance for the applications they serve. Micron's RealSSD P200 and C200 drives are sampling now with mass production expected in the fourth quarter of 2008. And Micron's Lexar Media subsidiary plans to bring the advantages of this latest RealSSD architecture to consumers in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Designed using Micron's multi-level cell (MLC) NAND process technology, the RealSSD C200 drives will be available in 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch form factors. The 2.5-inch C200 will be offered in densities of up to 256GBs. And with its small form-factor, the 1.8-inch C200 will range in density from 32GBs to 128GBs offering uncompromised power and performance levels. Using a 3 Gb/s SATA interface, the C200 products provide a read speed of up to 250 MB/s and a write speed of up to 100 MB/s.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 03:37 AM | Comments

Cisco earnings up 4 percent, beating forecasts

Cisco Systems Inc. said Tuesday that sales would be weaker than analysts had forecast in the next few quarters, but investors who had expected worse were cheered. The world's largest maker of computer networking gear said orders would grow 8 percent in the current quarter, as customers, particularly telecom carriers, pinch their money. Investors had been expecting the weak economy to catch up to the company. It's the dominant player in an industry that has been growing dramatically, but at the same time, its routers and switches are capital investments, the kind that suffer in an economic downturn.

Cisco shares were up $1.58, or 7 percent, at $24.25 in extended trading after the release of the results. The stock has slid from the year's high of $27.72 set June 5 as investors prepared for a weak forecast. For the fiscal fourth quarter that ended July 25, Cisco reported earnings of $2.01 billion, or 33 cents per share. In the same period last year, Cisco earned $1.93 billion, or 31 cents per share. Sales rose 10 percent to $10.4 billion. Excluding one-time items, earnings were 40 cents per share. Analysts had expected Cisco to report earnings of 39 cents per share on $10.3 billion in revenue, according to a Thomson Financial poll. Chief Financial Officer Frank Calderoni said the results, coming in "a quarter of somewhat uncertain macroeconomic conditions," demonstrated the strength of the company's business model.

Posted by | Wed, Aug 06, 2008 - 01:43 AM | Comments

August 5 News from Around the Web

Find reviews from around the web by visiting our forums! The following exerpt is from pcreview's Supermicro X7DWA-N Motherboard Review:

"I had the opportunity to spend some time testing and evaluating this motherboard with two sets of CPUs and two types of memory. First using two X5482 Harpertowns (3200/12mb/1600) and 4x2 gig of Transcend DDR2-800 FB-Dimms, and later on using two E5450 Harpertowns(3000/12mb/1333). This EATX board is built using the newest 5400 Seaburg chipset with 1600FSB support built in. The layout is a typical EATX 12x13” design and like previous versions uses 24, 8 and 4 pin connections to the motherboard. With this new series, a 4 pin Molex connector is added to the board for users with higher power needs. There are 8 Dimm slots for quad channel memory support (up to and including DDR2-800 FB-Dimms) for a maximum of 64 gigs. The board comes boxed with 6 SATA cables, I/O shield, IDE cable, and an excellent manual and Cd with all needed software and drivers."

Posted by | Tue, Aug 05, 2008 - 06:36 PM | Comments

Kingston Introduces Colorful, Super Slim USB Drives up to 4GB

Kingston Technology is introducing a fun, easy and colorful way to transport and share music, photos and other digital files with its new super thin DataTraveler Mini Slim USB Flash drive. Measuring a mere 1.529″ x 0.645″ x 0.253″ and available in both 2GB and 4GB capacities, these drives will have an MSRP of $11.00 and $19.00, respectively.

Available in black, blue or pink with gray bottom casings, the new USB drive is a perfect fashion accessory for students who want to transport homework assignments and other documents everywhere they go. Small enough to carry on a keychain, students can also use different color drives to color-code school subjects for easy access and organization to all their files.

Posted by | Tue, Aug 05, 2008 - 08:59 AM | Comments

Thecus iSCSI Series for Modern Enterprises Announced

Aiming at enterprise and small & medium business environment, Thecus has been known to deliver stable storage device with unparallel performance and data security. Other than innovation in NAS technology, Thecus again rocks the storage world with the powerful iSCSI storage series, the i4500R and i5500, which deliver unbeatable value proposition for enterprises looking to store and secure valuable data.

Powered by Intel® Xscale CPU and 512MB of DDR memory, both i4500R and i5500 are guaranteed to provide blazing data transfer speed, over 100MB/s for read and write under RAID 6. The i4500R and i5500 come with 4 and 5 hot-swappable SATA drive bays respectively that accommodate up to 4TB and 5TB of storage. A wide selection of RAID modes, including RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 3, 5, 6, 10, and JBOD, offer unbeatable security. Both iSCSI series use dedicated hardware controller to configure the array, effectively shortening time required to build RAID than a software RAID array.

Posted by | Tue, Aug 05, 2008 - 03:20 AM | Comments

Walton Chaintech APOGEE DDR3-1333 Memory Kits Now CMTL Certified

Walton Chaintech today announced that APOGEE DDR3 1333 1GB and 2GB single memory module have acquired Computer Memory Test Laboratory (CMTL) Certifications. Granted by CMTL which specifically offers strict industry testing standards for memory products, APOGEE DDR3 1333 memory modules have been doubtlessly proven of its high stability and compatibility for using with DDR3 motherboards, such as DX48BT2 and the platforms built on Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 processor.

Manufactured of using Fine-Pitch Ball Grid Array (FBGA) packages to have more advanced thermal dissipation and electrical efficiency, all APOGEE GT DDR3 memory module passed 100% burn in test for quality assurance and fully compatible with JEDEC standards, ensuring customers to enjoy an extreme user experience either for gaming or other multimedia applications with high computing needs.

Posted by | Mon, Aug 04, 2008 - 11:14 PM | Comments

NASA Now Looking for Life on Mars

For years NASA scientists have gathered clues and evidence to form a picture of what they thought was once on the surface of Mars. Current tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have now identified water in a soil samples. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample last week to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples. This marks the first time Martian water has been "touched" and "tasted". There is also speculation that more significant news is to come.

NASA/JPL Mars Phoenix Lander

"The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars," wrote Craig Covault, citing anonymous sources on the Phoenix Lander's wet chemistry lab team.

Posted by | Mon, Aug 04, 2008 - 12:52 PM | Comments

Intel Returns to the Graphics Card Game with Larrabee

News is starting to trickle out of the Intel camp about their new multi-core x86 architecture for "Visual Computing" dubbed "Larrabee". Even though details are scarce (for now), we know that the Larrabee family of multi-core chips will be originally aimed at the PC graphics market including Windows and Macintosh desktops as well as handhelds and supercomputers. For sure, more information is to come on this new architecture.

[Intel] will not yet go into the raw performance and feature set of said products, nor is it revealing the actual final number of cores that will be in shipping products. There's no mention of memory sizes, types, or bandwidth. Details about the new vector instruction set and the like are coming later, too.

Posted by | Mon, Aug 04, 2008 - 12:26 PM | Comments

US Border Patrol Allowed to Seize iPods & Laptops

It is now being reported by several outlets that the Department of Homeland Security has been granted the power to seize travelers’ "device(s) capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including “hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes" as well as "all papers and other written documentation." If you are traveling in and out of the US, you might want to take a close look at the this new policy as it allows random warrantless search and seizures at the boarder.

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Washington Post

Posted by | Mon, Aug 04, 2008 - 10:49 AM | Comments

Thermaltake Releases the New RAM Cooler - RamOrb

Thermaltake have taken their Orb design of coolers and applied it to a RAM heatspreader, complete with fan, for an interesting looking RAM cooler.

Thermaltake RAMorb Cooler

As a new member of the most famous Thermaltake Orb cooler series, RamOrb has been designed with a perfect heat transmitting channel to take heat away from the memory; consisting of a copper heatpipe to effectively conduct the heat to the copper fins for heat dissipation, and the extra 5cm fan works strongly to further accelerate the heat dissipation process. Other than the excellent structure, RamOrb is also angle adjustable for the enhancement of mechanical compatibility; and the side flow design integrates well with the chassis air flow to further push the cooling performance to the maximum.

Posted by | Mon, Aug 04, 2008 - 07:44 AM | Comments

Kingston Technology At Quakecon 2008

I just got sent over some pictures of the Kingston booth at Quakecon 2008. It looks like Kingston was showing off their HyperX mobile and desktop memory to the gamers who traveled to Dallas, Texas for the gaming event that ends today. We have one more picture of the booth in the forums if you want to take a peak.

Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world's largest independent manufacturer of memory products. Kingston designs, manufactures and distributes memory products for desktops, laptops, servers, printers, and Flash memory products for PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players. Through its global network of subsidiaries and affiliates, Kingston has manufacturing facilities in California, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and sales representatives in the United States, Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Taiwan, China, and Latin America.

Posted by | Sun, Aug 03, 2008 - 08:31 AM | Comments

NVIDIA Responds To Allogations on Leaving The Chipset Business

NVIDIA has responded to the DIGITIMES news post by sending out this statement directly to media sources through e-mail. The e-mail was hsort and to the point. It basically says that NVIDIA is staying in the chipset business and has no plans on leaving as they are gaining market share.

1. The story on Digitimes is completely groundless. We have no intention of getting out of the chipset business.
2. In fact, our MCP business is as strong as it ever has been for both AMD and Intel platforms:
a. Mercury Research has reported that the NVIDIA market share of AMD platforms in Q2 08 was 60%. We have been steady in this range for over two years.
b. SLI is still the preferred multi-GPU platform thanks to its stellar scaling, game compatibility and driver stability.
c. nForce 790i SLI is the recommended choice by editors worldwide due to its compelling combination of memory performance, overclocking, and support for SLI. In fact, a recent article on Tom’s Hardware recently came to the same conclusion: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/NVIDIA-790i-SLI,1977-29.html
3. We're looking forward to bring new and very exciting MCP products to the market for both AMD and Intel platforms.

Posted by | Fri, Aug 01, 2008 - 01:34 PM | Comments

Nvidia said to be quitting chipset business; company denies claims

Digitimes is reporting that Nvidia has decided to throw in the towel and quit the chipset business, sources close to the situation at one of Taiwan's top motherboard makers have revealed. As the story is told, Nvidia called a meeting earlier this week with its motherboard partners to gauge support for it continuing to develop chipsets in the future. We don't agree with this one bit and have contacted NVIDIA to get a response this Friday afternoon.

The loss of its chipset business would have a significant impact on Nvidia's GPU business in the short-term. Reception to the nForce 200 chip (BR04) which will enable SLI technology on Intel X58 motherboards has been lukewarm at best, with many makers saying they will not bother adding the chip on their boards. This means Nvidia needs to find a way of licensing and enabling multi-GPU support on motherboards using Intel and/or AMD chipsets fast. Otherwise it will have to cede the top-end of the graphics card market to AMD, which now has the benefit of Crossfire.

DigiTimes Daily IT News

Posted by | Fri, Aug 01, 2008 - 01:27 PM | Comments

August 1 News from Around the Web

Happy August, everyone! Sapphire Toxic HD4850 Review @ OCC and other reviews from around the web can be found in our forums!

"With a card that is overclocked well above the standard version, there is usually very little overhead to push the video card even further without voltage or BIOS mods that, of course, void your warranty. With the additional cooling capabilities of the Toxic HD4850 I was able to max out the Catalyst Control Panel clock speeds on just the first go-round. 700MHz on the core and 1200 on the memory - not too shabby! Then I started to push further. But, to do so, I needed to download and use the AMD GPU clock tool. This utility allowed me to set clock and memory speeds above those from the CCC. The highest GPU core speed that was at least 3DMark06 stable was 740/1212; unfortunately, this was stable only for just the Futuremark benchmark. So, I started backpedal.ing until I finally stopped at 731MHz on the GPU core and 1206MHz on the memory. This setup was good for all of our benchmark suite, as well as an extended COD4 session just to verify that the settings were indeed "good". The additional cooling that is offered by the Zalman cooler kept the temperatures in check, with a maximum temperature of 64 Celsius in my 27 Celsius room."

Posted by | Fri, Aug 01, 2008 - 07:55 AM | Comments

Corsair Breaks Memory World Record By Reaching 2580MHz DDR3

Corsair announced late last night that their Dominator DDR3 memory modules have again shattered the world record for frequency. The record was set using the Asus ROG Rampage Extreme motherboard (Intel X48 chipset) and of course Corsair Dominator memory. The world record of 2580 MHz was reached at latency settings of 9-9-9-24 using a Corsair Dominator DDR3 memory module. These results were achieved with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor overclocked to a breathtaking 645MHz Front-Side Bus frequency

Corsair previously announced on May 20th its world record of 2462MHz and has now raised the record up to 118MHz faster. Corsair achieved these results as part of ongoing lab experiments on the effect of temperature on memory performance. The 2580MHz memory speed was achieved with the entire test platform -- including motherboard, CPU, chip set, and memory -- chilled to -20 degrees Celsius.

Posted by | Fri, Aug 01, 2008 - 06:22 AM | Comments

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