More leaked AMD documents recently surfaced online and this time we get our first look at the upcoming AMD Dragon platform, which is set to replace the Spider platform.

The Spider platform was a marketing initiative created by AMD to generate interest towards its original Phenom processor, 790FX motherboard and Radeon HD3800 series graphics cards.

On its developer portal website, AMD released a brand new technology demo a few days ago called "Froblins".

The purpose of the tech demo is to showcase why DirectX 10.1 is important and the advantage it has over DX10 (NVIDIA).

For a bit there it was looking like AMD would be the first to introduce a quad core processor to market with a TDP of just 65W; the 2.1GHz Phenom X4 9450e which is set for release during Q1 of next year.

However, just when AMD thought they were onto a good thing with this chip, Intel are said to be striking back with not one, but three upcoming Core 2 Quad processors which also have a TDP of 65W. These new processors are as follows :-

US consumer habits are something of a laugh all by themselves (and I live in the US). It seems that as we wind deeper and deeper into the technological future, Americans are still buying without know what they are getting into.

Nick Farrell over at the Inq has put up an amusing article on a recent (and very limited) study done on this very thing. It seems that, at least in Virginia, roughly 50% of people asked said they needed help getting their shiny new toys up and running and an even larger percentage would need outside help to fix any technical issues they encountered.

Read all about it here

If you have not been under a rock for the last few years you a probably aware of the strong arm tactics the Recording Industry Artists of America take when dealing file sharing.

It seems that someone has decided to challenge the constitutionality of the laws that give this private group the right to use the US Civil courts as an enforcement tool for what is, in reality, a criminal matter.

FairFax Digital has an article from the Sydney Morning Herald about the new development.

Wow! Happy Birthday Windows, the month of November marks the 25th Anniversary of the announcement of the Windows operating system that has become both loved and despised the world over.

But according to Theo Valich there is a slight discrepancy in the actual age of Windows. He seems to think that 25 years might be too high a number and prefers to work off of the actual shipping date (which puts Windows at 23) rather than the announcement date that places Windows at 25.

Read more here

Today Intel will "officially" begin selling its range of Core i7 processors after the paper review launch earlier this month.

In perfect timing, DFI has just announced the release of its first Intel X58 Express based motherboard called the UT X58-T3eH8. We got an exclusive early look at it back in early October and you can see how it is has changed.

Leaked documents have recently surfaced online which reveal AMD's 2009 desktop processor plans and also confirms the marketing branding name of the CPUs, Phenom II.

According to the leak, on January 8th 2009, AMD will release its two fastest quad-core 125 watt planned desktop processors, the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition and 920. The 940 comes clocked at 3GHz and unlocked with 8MB of cache and the 920 comes clocked at 2.8GHz, also with 8MB of cache. Both of these processors will be AM2+ models.

A-DATA is launching a whole range of Triple-Channel DDR3 kits for the i7 today.

The kits will be both 3GB (3x1GB) and 6GB (3x2GB) sizes with speeds ranging from 1333MHz CL9 to 1600MHz+ CL8.

A-DATA XPG X Series DDR3-1600X (1GBx3) Kit CL7-7-7-20 at 1.75V-1.85V

Yesterday was a day for AMD announcements, Shanghai launched, OEM partners announced support and AMD/ATi talked about Stream.

In the midst of all of this I missed out on a very good read from Charlie Demerjian about how AMD/ATi are pushing Stream to the consumer. Of late Charlie has taken a very hard line on nVidia and their practices, well this article is not much different but is very enlightening on the GPGPU war to come.

Get your Stream info here