- NVIDIA to Bring Firewall Capabilities in its Next Chipsets

Xbit Labs have touched on the introduction of built-in firewall capabilities with nVidia's upcoming Athlon64 chipsets, due to be released well into next year.

It is not fully clear whether NVIDIA's firewall technology utilises both hardware and software means, or will rely fully on silicon, not software.

NVIDIA surely does not want to be behind the train and will add its developments in the security area. Given that one of the target markets for AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors are enterprise workstations, firewall may be an interesting option to decrease the cost of such computers as well as the cost of their ownership. Additionally, the Santa Clara, California-based fabless semiconductor company is expected to support all mainstream security technologies, such as Palladium, in its upcoming products too.

- Radeon 9600XT vs. FX5700 Ultra

The guys at AMDMB have completed a shoot-out between two cost friendly (yet still very fast) video cards, namely ATI's Radeon 9600XT and nVidia's FX 5700 Ultra. This will no doubt help some of you decide which way to go for the chrissy holidays.

The holidays is a scarcely a few days away and I know many of you will are looking closely at some graphics hardware. Since most of you can't afford the premium prices of a Radeon 9800XT or a GeForce FX5950 Ultra (see our Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD review for a comparison of the two), you'll probably be looking at a mainstream card. But for $200 USD, which card do you get? Today we will take a look at the performance of these two chipsets so you can make sure the diamond you think you're buying isn't a lump of coal.