Latest News - Page 3219

Not expected to hit the market until January of next year, Intel's first family of 32nm processors (codenamed Clarkdale) have already started to get listed online.

A german website has listed six Core i3 and i5 models which also shed light on their respective clockspeeds, amount of L3 cache, GPU clockspeeds and TDP ratings. The lowest model is the Core i3 530, operating at 2.93GHz and showing a price tag of 103.90 Euro, whilst at the other end of the Clarkdale scale is the Core i5 670, running at a stock clockspeed of 3.46GHz and carrying an associating price tag of 252.90 Euro.

Of note is the Core i5 661, the only one in the list with a GPU operating at 900MHz, up on the 733MHz of all the other models. The associating price on this one is presumed to be incorrect. It's more likely it'll be up around the 200 Euro mark.

Yesterday I attempted to begin my guide on bitstreaming Blu-ray HD audio from movie discs to your amplifier knowing that the current batch of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs come with this type of support. Namely the GeForce 200 series and Radeon HD 5000 series.

Suspecting it may be an issue, I quickly discovered that while the hardware side is ready to roll, the software is playing catch up. Presently, the publically available versions of CyberLink's PowerDVD do not support bitstreaming with either and we are still waiting to hear back from ArcSoft about whether or not Total Media Theater (TMT) is capable of such a feat.

We contacted CyberLink about the issue and were told that a new build as well as standalone patch will be coming out on November 27th to add bitstreaming support for AMD's 5000 series of video cards. We also asked about GeForce 200 series support, but did not get a clear answer as a product manager was not able to respond at the time.

There are a few issues that you have to plan for when you are moving from a HDD or SSD to a new and larger SSD. The first thing is exactly how you will get the data you need off your existing drive to the new drive. The other thing is what to do with the old drive once the migration is complete.

Imation has unveiled a new SSD Upgrade Kit that lacks software or hardware for actually transferring the data to the new SSD. The kit does include an external enclosure so you can use your old drive as an external storage device once it is removed.

The kit includes the Imation M-class SSD with 10-bit SSD. The SSD promises sequential read and write speeds of 230MB/sec and 170MB/sec respectively. The upgrade kit sells for $194.99 and is available now.

Swedish website TechSweden has managed to get hold of images and details showing off a H57 chipset based motherboard from MSI. The H57 Express chipset is designed to support the Flexible Display technology which talks directly with the on-die graphics on Intel's upcoming range of LGA-1156 based dual-core processors in Q1 2010.

The H57M-ED65 from MSI is of the micro-ATX form factor with enthusiast oriented features. the CPU gets a 10-phase VRM to play with and what looks to be very adequate cooling all over the DrMOS chips.

The board exclusively supports PCI-Express with no residing legacy PCI slots. The arrangement is two x16 slots (electrically at x16 / x4) and two x1 slots.

At 10:00am Pacfic Time (6 PM GMT) today. Google will announce an update to their Chrome OS in a live webcast. According to the infromation in the invite they will be covering the latest version and what has changed since we last heard from them. Chrome OS has been a highly debated subject ever since the first rumors surfaced. It should be fun to see what Google has planned and if it will indeed be an OS aimed only at the smart and netbook market or if it will be one that will suit a range of systems. Hopefully we will find that out today and also see how Google plans to distribute it.

We will be covering the event in as close to real time as we can get. Keep checking in here for updates as they happen (F5 will be your friend).

LIVE BLOG:

Asus has unveiled what it claims to be the world's first multi-touch netbook called the Eee PC T91MT. The convertible tablet netbook has an 8.9-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 that supports multi touch. The OS is Windows 7 Home Premium and the netbook runs an Intel Atom Z520 CPU.

Other features include 1GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD for local storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 0.3MP webcam. The battery is a li-polymer unit good for five hours per charge. The multi touch technology allows the user to browse the computer and zoom in or out with gestures like pinch and more.

Document pages can be flipped with a finger swipe and the machine ships with a touch-optimized app called TouchSuite. The machine will sell for $999, and since the announcement was from Australia, I presume that is in AUD meaning it will be cheaper when it tips up stateside.

I am not sure if the computer industry needs another boutique gaming PC maker. I can see some room for a firm capable of making unique and powerful gaming machines at a low price, but the gaming PC market is well served right now. I don't see room for more of the same.

A new gaming PC brand has debuted called Origin with a new desktop and a new laptop for gamers. The desktop is called the Genesis and has some interesting available options. One of the cool things is that the buyer can get any case that is on the market today. Unlimited paint and color options are available and the rig can be had with overclocked AMD or Intel processors. Pricing for the Genesis desktop starts at $1,699.

The Eon18 gaming notebook has unlimited color and design options for paint. The screen is 18.4-inches and the resolution is 1920 x 1080. The notebook uses an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. Graphics are via NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M video card and 8GB of RAM is installed. Storage is to three HDDs with RAID options and a Blu-ray drive is built in. The gaming notebook starts at $2599.

Details with pics have shown up on the web of ASUS' upcoming ROG series P55 board which they call the Maximus III Extreme. The board will make a showing by ASUS at DreamHack at the end of this month in Jönköping, Sweden where some of the best overclockers in the world get together and battle it out for supremacy.

The Maximus III Extreme is a special P55 chipset board not just because of the typical extensive feature-set that comes with ASUS ROG range of boards, but in that it includes an additional PCI-Express bridge chip that allows for dual x16 lanes or the use of x8 lanes across four of the five residing x16 slots on the board, with the fifth being wired to the PCH, electrically operational at x4.

The board runs an 11 phase digital PWM circuit which uses a SuperML capacitor, whilst the four DDR3 slots use a 3-phase circuit.

Last week a fellow called David Cummings, Director of Marketing for Desktop GPU from AMD, flew into Taipei and gave local press here in Taiwan a solid presentation on the new ATI Radeon 5970 dual GPU video that is being released today around the world.

We headed on over to the AMD offices in Taipei and recorded the presentation for everyone to watch. It summarizes the new video card in AMD speak, but David does go into quite a bit of details, especially the "UNLOCKED" feature of the card that allows for some pretty insane overclocking.

At the end of the video we also get a bit of a hands-on look at ATI Eyefinity technology running DiRT 2, which is an upcoming DX11 rally car game.

Wow, who would have thought that social networking would force its way into the world of console gaming. Well it has and can be accessed now even on the Xbox 360. Yep that's right, earlier today a few updated (and free) applications were released for the Xbox 360 (and Live Gold subscribers). The fun new stuff includes access to Facebook, Twitter, and a new version of the video marketplace called Zune Video. This last one allows you to view On-Demand 1080P HD video through your Xbox 360. You can even share your viewing with up to seven friends by using voice chat and what they call Avatar Integration.

The last of the new features is pretty nice but has a couple of tiny, little itty-bitty issues. This is Last.FM an internet connected radio stations (like Pandora) this allows you to create your own mix through the use of Bans, and Loves. The tiny problem we talked about is that it cannot run in the background.

In all the new updates, are interesting but I have to wonder how quickly they will lose their luster and become just another un-used thing on your console.

Over the last few years there has been an explosion of flash video. This really got going when YouTube hit the scene but was beginning its climb even before then on certain, um ...questionable sites. But the problem has always been one of performance, it is true that the modern desktop can run flash without any problems but we start to have issues when we get into the personal media players and netbooks/nettops. These systems do not have the available CPU power to spare for larger or high resolution flash video.

NVIDIA has been working to change this, together with Adobe they have developed a new version of the Flash Player that can run on the GPU (thanks to the use of NV's CUDA technology). Again on the average desktop or even laptop this is not much use. But when you drop it onto a nettop or netbook equipped with ION or GF9400M then you have something. Suddenly you open up a whole new vista of Flash video capabilities on the "net" product and even open up the possibility for flash video on smaller devices (like those powered by Tegra).

Unfortunately at the time if this writing the new player has limited support and only runs on NV products running under Windows. Still it is an improvement we are glad to see and one that does hold promise for the future.

Asus is certainly a popular maker of computer hardware and netbooks. MSI has perhaps the coolest mainboard for enthusiasts that is available called the Big Bang Fusion. This is the board that allows you to mix and match video card models and brands and still get all the performance from your machine.

MSI has announced that it is holding an overclocking contest and each week one winner will be chosen and given a new Big Bang mainboard. The competition is the MSI Xtreem Speeder P55 global online overclocking competition. The contest is being run with the overclocking site HWBOT.

The contest will run for four weeks starting on November 15 and finish on December 13. The competition is restricted to users with the MSI P55 mainboard and a regular retail Lynnfield CPU. That means none of those Engineering samples you might have lying around can be used. Benchmarks include accumulated scores of the CPU-Z, SuperPI 32M and Wprime 32M test suits.

For a long time I used a special edition Cooler Master Stacker NVIDIA edition case for my gaming machine with the black and green trim to celebrate the NVIDIA corporate colors. If you like the idea of a case that has design cues from your favorite video card marker, but you aren't an NVIDIA fan, Cooler Master has a new case for you.

The new case is the Cooler Master HAF 932 AMD. The case is black with red trim. The clear side window has the AMD Fusion dragon logo and looks really cool. Inside the case the lights are red as well. Other than the red trim and special clear window, the case is just like the other HAF 932 already available.

The case has tool-free drive bays, a removable HDD cage, and openings for liquid cooling tubing to be passed through. The PSU is bottom mounted and the case ships with two 120mm fans to keep the components cool.

Today is a good day as the latest in the Office series hits Technet officially. Yup that is right Office 2010 has just hit Technet. Granted it was out on a few um...less than reputable sites a little early but there was also word that those copies were riddled with viruses and did more than a few nasty things to your PC (like resetting permissions and ownership on registry keys).

Still now that the first Beta is officially here it is really only a matter of time before we see the real thing up and running. We will be taking a look at some of the new features offered and will let you in on what you can expect from the next Office version.

For now we will just show you what MS has decided to push up to Technet. I hope their servers are up to it. I know they weren't when Windows 7 hit.

As you might have expected there has been some financial fallout from the surprise settlement between Intel and AMD. Presently AMD stock is up $1.09 to $6.41 (20.49%), while on the other side, Intel saw a very small gain of +$.03 (.15%). But this is not the only fallout.

Intel has just updated its Q4 financial expectations as they intend to take the hit from the $1.25 billion USD check to AMD all in Q4. They have changed their earlier statement to reflect a total R&D spending plus MG&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) to $4.2 billion (up from 2.9 billion). Tax rate is expected to drop by 20%, which is down from 26%. Everything else is unchanged.

Which brings us to the real cost of this. $1.25 billion is a large amount of money; make no mistake - this is not a small settlement. But in terms of total cost to Intel it is. By AMD agreeing to drop all of its complaints (although the New York case is still on according to AMD), Intel will actually save money as there has been a growing momentum against Intel. This means they would have more than likely lost their case In Japan and other countries that AMD was pursuing them in. The potential loss could have been significantly higher than what Intel is paying out right now.

It looks like AMD and Intel's long running fight over anti-trust and competition has finally come to an end.

Today we have received news that AMD and Intel have reached a settlement. But the settlement does not just cover the matter of Intel's alleged anti-competitive behavior, but also the x86 cross licensing agreement that has been at issue ever since the Global Foundries spin off.

The terms of the agreement are listed below (taken straight from the press release)

So the Zune HD is finally getting some decent games. It took Microsoft a little less than two months to get them out but now that they are hear Zune HD owners can finally begin to show off the power of the Tegra inside their PMPs.

As of this morning the Zune Marketplace is showing roughly seven extra free games and apps. Of special note are PGR: Ferrari Edition and AudioSurf Tilt. We had the chance to grab these free games and to take them for a short spin. We can honestly report that the Zune HD is quite the gaming platform.

In PGR: Ferrari Edition we found the graphics to be excellent while the Accelerometer in the Zune HD offered better control than the one in the iPhone 3G (or 3G S). The game was fast paced and the audio processor is excellent at maintaining in game sounds.

AMD is set to launch a new flagship video card called the HD 5970 and ahead of that official introduction, some of the specifications for the card have been leaked online. The card has the code name Hemlock and has two GPUs on a single video card.

The GPUs are called Cypress, has an internal CrossfireX configuration, and are built on the 40nm process. Each GPU will have 1600 stream processors and a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface. Actual VRAM will be 4GB total.

That means each GPU will get a massive 2TB of memory. The dual slot card will reportedly have a pair of DVI-D ports and a mini DisplayPort with the other slot having a large heat vent. The NDA will reportedly expire on the card on the 19th of November.

GIGABYTE have fired up two new challenges lined for overclockers this month; the P55 Overclocking Challenge and 10K challenge.

With regard to the P55 Overclocking Challenge, as long as you have a P55 based setup with a Core i5 or i7 processor ready to be clocked through the roof, you can enter and compete for the overall "OverclocKing" title.

The top three overall 3DMark 06 scorers worldwide on a GIGABYTE P55 motherboard will be crowned OverclocKing, along with some pretty amazing hardware loot from GIGABYTE, Antec, Kingmax, GlacialTech and Enermax. There will also be a weekly lucky draw for contestants entered in the OverclocKing challenge, with winners receiving a GIGABYTE motherboard.

NVIDIA is in the news again, this time for a mystery tablet that was lying on the table in front of NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. We asked NVIDIA about it and were informed that it is a product being made by an ODM partner called ICD.

We were also told that it is a concept that is actively being sold to carriers around the world and was used to highlight Tegra and what you can do with it. Tegra is a product that Huang sees great potential in (and so do we). This tiny yet complete system is already sandwiched into the ZuneHD and has been showing off what even the first generation can do when put to use.

The Tegra 2 set to launch next year is going to be even more powerful as we hear talk of two Coretex A9 ARM Dual Core CPUs being used. We have also heard that there may be two GeForce 9 based GPUs to over either style performance or, more likely, to enable Cuda and Physics for the small single chip computer. We are waiting to get more information from NVIDIA on the device and hope to be able to provide you with more information shortly.