eBay Downplays Auctions, Opts for Fixed Priced Sales

In an attempt to increase the number of Buy-it-Now auctions on the popular bidding site, eBay has taken new measures to encourage sellers to put their items up for sale at a fixed price, rather than hold auctions. The company has lowered the price to put Buy-it-Now items up for sale, which has left many smaller auctioneers in an unfair position.

The price to post a Buy-it-Now item will decrease to a flat fee of $.35, and sellers can offer quantities of the same item for that same amount, instead of having to pay for each one. Items can now be listed for 30 days, instead of the more modest 7. This will add to the recently changed feedback system that was introduced in February, which prevents sellers from giving negative feedback.

Although eBays says they "love" auctions, but as Ars Technica points out, "eBay has made a name for itself as the place to go for online auctions, and now the site's focus will be more about giving resellers another online storefront than engaging in bidding wars." In many respects, we all knew this change was eventually coming based on the company's purchase of Half.com and the recent changes made, so the changes shouldn't be too surprising for many longtime eBayers.

eBay is making some changes that will further shift its focus from online auctions to fixed price resellers. The company announced Wednesday that it plans to drop the cost of listing an item under "Buy It Now" by 70 percent, extend allowable listing periods for these items, and lift a number of other restrictions in order to attract even more sellers. Although auctions are about to disappear, the move is an example of eBay's shifting priorities, and not everyone is happy about it.

Source: Ars Technica

More Details on Overclocking Nehalem

At an Intel briefing today, we learned a lot more about what to expect when benchmarking Nehalem, and much of it answered the exact questions that have been lingering in my mind for some time. If you read our overview on Nehalem already, then you know the benefits of the tri-channel memory, but what about overclocking?

First and foremost, while the 'ideal' memory configuration for a high-end Yorkfield is 2x1GB DDR3-1600, the ideal solution for Nehalem will be 3x1GB DDR3-1066. Seems weak, but if you read my article last night (and I do recommend it), then you'd know that it's far from being the weak link here. It effectively removes any potential bottleneck, and in most regards, the I/O becomes the new bottleneck (one that's not really seen with RAID'ing multiple SSD though!).

How will you overclock memory on Nehalem, or the CPU for that matter? Well, I'll admit I still don't totally understand how memory is overclocked, or how the frequency is even calculated, but Intel stresses that the skies the limit. The chipset and CPU shouldn't be the weak link, rather it would be the modules themselves.

Going beyond DDR3-2000 speeds should be entirely possible. You might run into weird issues which will likely not be visible with regards to strange dividers, but the overall performance really wouldn't reflect it. That's something we'll specifically have to test once the chip hits the lab.

Contrary to what I mentioned in yesterday's article (oops), the Turbo Mode -does- have something to do with CPU overclocking, but it's a bit odd to explain. Turbo Mode will not be activated in the traditional state during an overclock, but in the BIOS, there will be a Turbo Mode that allows you to increase the figure to increase the overclock. Increasing the Turbo Mode will supposedly be an unlimited affair, but I'm still unsure what exactly that number is going to be based on, but I can definitely say that it's nothing to do with the QPI.

QPI is another thing. It can be overclocked, but Intel highly recommends to not adjust the 133MHz figure, and as far as I'm aware, motherboard vendors are asked to make it clear that adjusting it is dangerous. Even Intel themselves are unsure of what could happen with a highly overclocked QPI over time, but the results are apparently not representative of an ideal system.

There are still a lot of questions hovering around overclocking on Nehalem, and they won't likely be fully answered without real hands-on time with a machine. What I can state with extreme confidence is that Nehalem will be highly overclockable, and enthusiast overclockers will have little to complain about. I've seen ES Extreme Edition samples running at 4.0GHz on a modest air cooler, and I feel rather confident that production samples will act similarly.

Sony Announces 160GB PS3 & Wireless Keypad

Sony can never seem to settle on one specific SKU of the PS3. Shortly after releasing a new 80GB model that dropped the PS3's backwards compatibility, the company has decided to let loose a new 160GB model in the form of an Uncharted: Drake's Fortune bundle, which will also include a PlayStation network voucher for PAIN and a DualShock 3 wireless controller.

Sony also announced the growing availability of the aforementioned 80GB model in retailers, and a new rechargeable wireless keypad accessory that will attach to Sixaxis and DualShock 3. The pad will work with PlayStation Home and offers a trackpad-like functionality that will provide cursor control with the PS3's web browser.

I'm not a huge fan of Sony's practice of dropping features and and increasing the hard drive space to make up for missing features like the lack of backwards compatibility, but if the PS3's market share is increasing, more power to them. I do think that more people are buying PS3s for its media capabilities and downloadable PSN games, so the extra space isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In an effort to increase sales, Sony has tried several tactics with its PS3 console from slashing prices to offering limited edition PS3 bundles. In July, Sony announced that it would be pricing the 80GB PS3 bundle at $399 and discontinuing the 40GB PS3 that had previously occupied $399 price point.

Source: DailyTech

Intel Announces TV Processor, Partnership with Yahoo!

At today's keynote, Eric Kim and others discussed how the television has always been a static part of our lives. People love watching TV, and that hasn't changed, even with the advent of the Internet. Up to this point, the TV hasn't become a truly Internet-capable device, or at least has not been executed well. Intel revealed a brand-new processor exclusively for the TV, called CE 3100.

The 150 million transistor processor is designed to be low-power (>10W), while enabling features such as high-definition video support, 3D graphics support, all while offering high-performance. Being that the CPU is based on Intel's IA, development should be a relative breeze, allowing great TV-specific tools and applications to be written.

Along with this, Yahoo! was there to showcase their exclusive widgets feature, which will improve the Internet/TV experience by a wide margin. I'm normally not one to be impressed by any sort of widget, but the way these are implemented are sure to improve the overall experience. Their demos showcased a bar running along the bottom with various widgets that could be selected and opened to the side. Such examples were checking your favorite stocks, looking for a movie to rent, weather information, and even shopping. The overall idea isn't that impressive, but the implementation is.

With Intel's chip now shipping, we should be seeing this functionality in our TV's Q1 2009, especially from Toshiba and Samsung. I'm not even a TV buff, but I can imagine having a lot of fun with this.

August 20th Tech Roundup

• ECS P45T-A - PCSTATS
• ECS GF8200A - Overclockers Club

• Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 - Benchmark Reviews
• AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 - ThinkComputers
• Radeon HD 4870 X2 - InsideHW
• ASUS HD 4870 X2 - Overclock3D
• Diamond HD 4870 - Legit Reviews

• ATP EarthDrive 2GB USB Drive - Overclockers Club
• Icy Dock External HDD Enclosure - ASE Labs
• 
  

• Thermaltake DuOrb CPU Cooler - Bigbruin
• Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler - techPowerUp

• Corsair TX750 750W - Overclockers Online
• Corsair TX750 750W - Ninjalane

• Lenovo 22" Display Contest - DigitalTrends