Latest News - Page 3370

The PG221 22-inch gaming monitor from Asus was announced earlier today and it has some rather interesting features that set it apart from your average 22-inch LCD display. It has a resolution of 1,680x1,050 which is pretty much the norm for a display this size and Asus has coated it with a reflective coating. This is not to everyone's liking, but it is great for high contrast stuff like games and video.

But it's the rest of the specifications that makes this display interesting, it has a built in pair of 5W speakers and a small 15W subwoofer hanging off the stand. This isn't the first time we've seen this from Asus, but it keeps things neat and tidy if you don't have a lot of desk space for a set of speakers.

Palit has just announced its Radeon HD 2600Pro Sonic, which features a built in HDMI connector, making it easier to connect the card to HDMI enabled displays and HD TV's. The card retains one DVI and get a D-Sub connector as well, although it's missing a TV-out connector, but if your TV already has HDMI, why bother with analogue?

The card itself looks quite generic and it features a fairly standard cooler. The HD 2600Pro Sonic has 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.4GHz and the GPU is clocked at 650MHz. This is the first Radeon HD 2600 Pro card to feature GDDR3 memory and it should allow for a performance boost against the competition.

A Korean company called SavitMicro has launched an interesting device, it's a NAS and HD video player in one. It's called the cineDISK CD36HD and its one of the most feature packed devices of this type we've ever seen. Not only is it a NAS (it's actually a NDAS devices), although it only has 10/100Mbit Ethernet, it can also connect to your PC via USB 2.0 for some faster file transfers and it has two USB 2.0 host ports for external drives. There's also a version available with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.

So far it's not that remarkable, as there are plenty of devices like this on the market already. What sets the cineDISK CD36HD apart from every other such device is the fact that it connects up to your TV. Around the back you'll find DVI-D, Component video, S-Video and composite video outputs. It supports up to 1080p resolution, but there's no mention of HDCP support. It has a set of stereo RCA jacks, an optical and coaxial S/PDIF and finally even analogue 5.1-channel RCA jacks. Pretty impressive to say the least.

Logitech has announced two new web cameras, the QuickCam Pro 9000 and QuickCam Pro for Notebooks, Both cameras can record video at 960x720 at 30fps, although these aren't the first cameras from Logitech to be able to do this. The big news here is that both these cameras use Carl Zeiss optics, which Logitech claims will improve the overall picture quality.

These are also the first web cameras from Logitech to feature auto focus and this should provide for superior quality to past cameras in itself. For still images these two new cameras features 2Mega pixel resolution and they will take still images at 1,600x1,200, although this can be software interpolated up to 8Mega pixels. Logitech's RightLight technology is also part of the package and it makes it easier for the camera to adjust to varying light situations automatically.

With the new AMD cards having launched yesterday, we tried to find out if you could find one in Australia and how much it would set you back. Well, the good news is that you can indeed get a Radeon HD 2600 XT if you'd want to pick one up today. The only problem is that it'll set you back AU$187 inc GST and that's for a GDDR3 card.

The card is from PowerColor and its entire range of cards are available right now. Starting from the bottom, a 256MB GDDR2 2400 Pro will cost you $110, the 2400 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 is retailing for $132. Considering that you can easily pick up an 8500GT, which is a faster card, for under $100, it seems like the 2400 series is priced out of its class.

A Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB of DDR2 memory will set you back $159.50 while the 512MB version is another $11 at $170.50. Both of these cards are more expensive than an 8600GT, which should be the faster card. Althoug the 2400 XT is faster than an 8600GT, with current pricing, there isn't enough of a performance difference to consider one of these cards.

The lads over at InsideHW have recently been handed a mysterious Intel based processor, which when firing up CPU-Z reported it to be a "Celeron" branded offering derived from the Conroe-L core. This simply indicates we will soon be seeing nice and cheap Conroe based Celeron processors enter the market.

The sample InsideHW were given was in fact an engineering sample, allowing the multiplier to go up to 14.

Some details about the processor. It's a single-core chip with 1MB of L2 cache, is based on a 65nm fab and runs a bus speed equal to that of the Pentium E2000 series, 200MHz (800Mhz Quad-pumped). InsideHw have a guess and say that it's likely this upcoming family of chips will be dubbed the "Celeron E1XXX" series or something like that.

Alongside PowerColor, ASUS soon after unveiled details about their new lineup of "EAH2600 and 2400 Series" graphics cards, these comprising the ATI HD2600XT, HD2600PRO, HD2400XT and HD2400PRO.

You can get all the details on them over at ASUS's website.

A to us unknown console accessory company called XCM is listing a new product that should appeal to owners of older Xbox 360 consoles, as they claim they're working on an HDMI cable that will work with them.

What exactly this cable does isn't clear at this time, as the only reference on the site is that it enables HMDI and 1080P output from the regular white Xbox 360. Our guess is that it combines the VGA or component video signal with the digital audio in the round little box on the middle of the cable and then outputs this as some kind of pseudo HDMI signal.

Since the official release of AGEIA's "PhysX" (dedicated physics) card for games, we haven't seen anything exciting happening with it at all. Following its release, of the VERY few games that were able to make use of it (namely Cellfactor, GRAW and a few others), these titles were discovered to work just fine without this card, not only that but the difference in physics effects with and without it were quite minimal, certainly not enough to warrant forking out for one.

To help draw a bit of attention to it again, a video posted up on YouTube shows off a new level in GRAW 2 called "AGEIA Island" with the PhysX in action, and after checking it out for myself it definitely wowed me more than anything i've seen from the card before.

Seagate have today announced not one, but two new hard drives with 1TB capacities. The new Barracuda 7200.11 is aimed at the consumer level whilst the Barracuda ES.2 model is an enterprise drive.

Both drives have 32MBs worth of L2 cache onboard, 3.0Gbps SATA and NCQ. The main difference between the 7200.11 and the ES.2 series drives is that the ES.2 uses a serial attached SCSI (or SAS) interface. the ES.2's MTBF rating has also been raised to 1.2 million hours, which is 200,000 hours more than the previous Barracuda ES series drives.

Both drives should become available anytime during this quarter with the Barracuda 7200.11 carrying an MSRP of $399. Both drives are also backed up by Seagate's 5 year warranty.

Dell has just launched a new 13.3-inch XPS notebook, which will be available in one of three colours, red, black or white. Well, the lid will be at least, since the rest of the system is either grey, silver or black, depending on what part of it you're looking at.

It's rather nice looking for a Dell design tough and it packs quite a lot of features. It will come with a choice of Core 2 Duo processors up to 2.2GHz, all but one at 800MHz bus, up to 4GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, a choice of integrated Intel GMA X3100 graphics or a GeForce Go 8400M with 128MB of GDDR3.

It seems like Nvidia is working on a new technology called Hybrid SLI and it will enable you to use a combination of integrated and discrete graphics. It will not only allow for increased performance during 3D, as it is also a power saving technology.

When the discrete GPU isn't needed, say for example when you're doing mundane Windows tasks, the discrete solution will be powered down and the integrated GPU will take over, thus reducing the power drawn by the system.

If this sounds familiar to you, then you'll be glad to know that AMD actually announced its PowerXPress technology a little while back for its next mobile platform. Nvidia isn't specifically talking about notebooks here though, as it works just as well on a desktop system.

AMD/ATI have pushed out a new revision of their CATALYST drivers for the month, the 7.6s. One of the main areas improved upon with this driver is even better HD 2900 XT CrossFire performance, with huge gains of up to 42% seen in Half-Life 2: Episode One with HDR+AA enabled. Dark Messiah: Might and Magic also sees around a 16% performance increase with HDR enabled.

There's also a stack of resolved issues and bug fixes across various game titles etc, As listed in AMD/ATI's release notes.

Information about eight new devices from HTC has made its way onto the web and it's looking like HTC is packing some serious hardware if this information proves to be correct. First up we have the Kaiser or the P4550 which we wrote about here, although it seems like it has been delayed until August now.

This model will replace the TyTN in the current range and will feature a 400MHz Qualcomm CPU, 256MB ROM, 64MB RAM, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, assisted GPS, a 2 or 3Mega pixel camera, a semi-automatic sliding keyboard (no, this has nothing to do with guns), but sadly it only has USB 1.1 interface for syncing it with your PC.

Next up we have Nike, or the P5500 which is a more classic looking slider with a 2.6-inch QVGA touch screen, 128MB ROM, 64MB RAM, the same 400MHz Qualcomm CPU, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, a 2Mega pixel camera and again only USB 1.1. This is the first slider without a keyboard from HTC and it looks like an interesting model.

HP launched no less than nine new compact digital cameras today, an extensive new line up to say the least. The one that looks the most striking is the new Photosmart R937, as it has a rather odd looking centre mounted lens and a 3.6-inch touch screen display. It also features an 8Mega pixel sensor, anti-shake mode, 32MB of built in memory and 3x optical zoom. It's expected to cost around US$300 when it arrives in August.

Next up is the Photosmart R847 which shares the 3x optical zoom 8Mega pixel sensor, 32MB of built in memory and the anti-shake mode, but doesn't have a touch screen. It should retail for around $230, also in August.

Then we have the entry level Photosmart E337 which is a basic 5 Mega pixel point and shoot model with a 1.5-inch display and 16MB of internal memory. At $80 this is quite a bargain, but don't expect too much from it. It will be available from next month.

The people behind The Piratebay have launched a new image hosting service, bayimg and it is meant to be complete free from censoring. If this is a good or a bad thing is a matter of how you look at it, but it also means it will be hard for any big corporate pressure to remove content. However, they do reserve the right to remove illegal images.

The bayimg hosting service supports 140 different image file formats as well as ZIP and RAR archives. File size is limited to 100MB per file, but if you upload an archive, an album is automatically created for it and you get a URL for the whole album.

There are also options for automatic resizing of your pictures to a wide range of standard resolutions.

Creative has added another MP3 player to its range of products, the Zen Stone Plus. The main differences between it and the original Zen Stone are the addition of a tiny round OLED display, an FM radio and an extra Gigabyte of memory.

The OLED display features a blue backlight and has a resolution of 64 x 64 pixels, enough for basic track info, but not much more. The 2GB of memory should be able to fit around 500 MP3's or 1,000 WMA's according to Creative.

The battery life is rated at around 9.5h, which isn't bad considering the original Zen Stone is rated at 10h. Somehow Creative has also managed to decrease the weight by 4 grams, not a bad feat at something that only weighs 21 grams to start with.

Transcend have announced some new Ultra-Speed models to their "JetFlash" range of USB flash drives this week, these being the JetFlash 160, 168, 110 and 2A series.

All of these new models use quality dual Hi-Speed SLC NAND Flash chips which are capable of a max read and write speed of 30MB/s and 25MB/s respectively. As such, they are also suited to the Windows ReadyBoost feature in Vista.

Each of the models can be had in 2, 4 and 8GB capacities, with a 16GB capacity also available with the JetFlash 2A variant.

Alienware has started to offer its P2 chassis as a barebones option, for a whopping US$399. It's really quite amazing that no-one has thought about this before, but it seems like Alienware is selling the most expensive case ever.

This is a limited time offer and you can only choose between Silver and Black. The P2 case is an extended ATX case, so it should fit just about anything apart from some larger dual or quad CPU boards.

Seagate's Cheetah series of enterprise SCSI hard disks are reknowned for their sheer awesome performance, spinning at 15,000RPM. But as of today there is a new type of Cheetah hard drive now available; Seagate call it the Cheetah NS, which when first glancing over the specs it oddly spins at just 10,000RPM.

The reason for this is that Seagate deliberately backed off the drive's spindle speed for the sole reason of reducing power consumption (given most of these drives end up running in 24/7 servers which dont utilize all of that 15,000RPM more than 90% of their working life).

The NS series Cheetah has a rather large 400GB capacity (for a SCSI drive) across four platters, and is reported to consume around 34% less power at idle and 33% less during normal operation over Seagate's native 10K RPM drives.