Tech News From Around The Web

Off to IDF 2009

Welp, I'm out the door once again to head to the west coast, we're I'll be attending the latest iteration of Intel's Developer Forum. As always, you can expect regular updates throughout the show, not just of Intel's own developments, but their partners as well (and there are plenty).

If you recall our Taiwan trip from a few months ago, I kept a regular "diary" of sorts in our forums which let you experience Computex along with us... not just with information from the show, but other fun stuff outside the show as well. In all honesty, IDF and San Francisco isn't near as interesting as Taiwan (at least, in my opinion), but I plan to continue the tradition and give an inside peek of what goes on when we attend IDF (minus the shower scenes).

So what's to look forward to this year? Well, there won't be as much desktop talk this year, primarily due to the fact that Lynnfield was released just weeks ago. I don't expect there to be a total lack from that front though... Gulftown isn't too far off, after all. This year, there is going to be a lot of focus on mobile, small desktop and other related devices, including technical information on Intel's 32nm SoC and the Jasper Forrest embedded chip, a follow-up on Moore's Law and it's direction, Clarksfield (notebook Nehalem) and a lot more technology hovering around TV and entertainment. Oh, and there will be no Larrabee developments, at least we're told.

Aside from all the really technical information, Intel's bringing in alternative rock band Maroon 5 to play to a large crowd of geeks. I'm really interested to see some of the company's engineers rock out. Another tradition is going to dinner with Intel's coolest press rep, Dan Snyder, and a small group of US (and lone Canadian (me)) journalists. These dinners are always a lot of fun, especially given that Dan really knows how to pick the best wine (last year, we even enjoyed a bottle that was under embargo until just then. No joke).

As always, stay tuned, and post your thoughts/comments/questions in the related thread!

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OCZ Announces Availability of its Z-Drive PCI-E SSD

There has been some doubt over the past few months (especially from competitors) as to whether or not OCZ would deliver their PCI-E "Z-Drive" solid-state disk to market, but according to a press release issued late last week, we should be able to expect immediate availability (as in, availability soon to the end consumer). At the time of this writing, I couldn't find any e-tailers to stock the product, but I'd expect places like Newegg to stock it very soon.

For those unaware, OCZ's Z-Drive is the company's answer to the S-ATA performance bottleneck. Because the drive utilizes the PCI-E bus, speeds faster than what the S-ATA bus can provide are possible. In the case of the P84 1TB drive, 870MB/s Read and 780MB/s Write speeds are possible. That kind of performance is simply a pipe dream where S-ATA drives are concerned.

Because the Z-Drive will be expensive, and understandably so, OCZ has released two versions, the E84 and P84 (I'm unsure what 84 represents). The E version uses SLC chips, so it's faster, and has a longer lifespan, but should also be considerably more expensive. The P version on the other hand sticks to the much more affordable, yet still fast, MLC chips.

Pricing as of press time haven't been made available, but I'd expect these to target only businesses and server environments. Considering each Z-Drive utilizes four standard SSDs in RAID, they're likely to be more expensive than four SSDs of a given speed if you were to buy them individually. Either way, the release of these will hopefully help boost SSDs in the marketplace. The sooner these high-end drives become common, the sooner they become a reality to the end-consumer.

With 8 PCI-E lanes and an internal four-way RAID 0 configuration, the Z-Drive delivers exceptional performance that translates to professional-class data storage in a complete, all-in-one form factor. Additionally, OCZ offers unique customization options for OEM clients that may require tailored hardware or firmware solutions for their business.

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Upgrading the HP dv2 to Windows 7 Home Basic

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but up until now, I haven't given Windows 7 much of an honest go. It's not due to a lack of interest, but rather boils down to available time, which has been scarce lately. But, since we received some RTM copies of the OS recently, I decided that I  put off the testing for too long. So, I sucked it up and decided to give it a reasonable test.

Well, for now I won't give too much opinion on what I think of the OS, but I can say that I've been enjoying it quite a bit. In fact, I feel it completely makes up for Vista's various shortcomings. Within a half-hour of testing it out, I really felt compelled to install it on my main machine, to replace my Windows XP installation (I run Linux as primary, but Windows as secondary). To feel that way about an OS after about 30 minutes of usage says something.

Because a lot of people will be choosing 7 as an upgrade path, rather than a fresh install, I decided to give that scenario a go on two notebooks here, including my HP dv2. This notebook is modest in all regards, and the fact that it came included with Vista Home Basic proves it. So naturally, I chose Windows 7 Home Basic as the upgrade path (actually, I was forced into it... you cannot mix and match versions).

I have always shunned upgrading OS' in the past, but I have to admit that I was surprised by just how easy it was to upgrade from Vista to 7. The entire process took about 90 minutes, and before I knew it, I was at the desktop, 7-style. Because I prefer a clean install, I then installed fresh, as I wanted to see how much of the hardware it would pick up, especially the GPU, since I was unable to find a 7 driver for it anywhere.

Well as you can see above, the install went quite well. The WEI is rather low, but this is a budget computer after all. What impressed me, though, is that absolutely every piece of hardware in the machine was taken care of. After the install, I was good to hop on the WiFi and download whatever I needed to via Windows Update, including the GPU driver (ATI X1270). I was actually quite surprised that a driver was available at all, and it was a big relief given it would have been a show-stopper.

So far, I'm happy with the overall performance. I have all the applications installed that I need, and though the notebook has a slow processor, it seems totally manageable. Whether or not it's faster or has better battery-life than Vista, I'm not sure. I plan on dedicating this notebook for use during IDF, so I'll be able to find out soon enough. Stay tuned!

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Tech Roundup - September 21, 2009

Motherboards & Processors
• ASRock P55 Deluxe - TweakTown
• Gigabyte AMD Motherboard Roundup - Overclockers Club
• MSI P55-GD65 - Motherboards.org

Displays & Video Cards
• MSI N285GTX Superpipe OC - PC Perspective
• Samsung P2370HD 23-inch LCD Monitor - ThinkComputers
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 Arctic Cooling - TweakTown

Memory & Storage
• Super Talent Pico C 32GB Flash Drive - Red and Blackness
• TEAM Group Supreme U100 64GB Pen Drive - TweakTown

Peripherals & Gadgets
• CM Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse - Pro-Clockers
• Eagletech Arion iDock Speaker System - OverclockersHQ
• Novero TheFirstOne Bluetooth Headset - i4u
• Plantronics Discovery 975 Bluetooth Headset - i4u

Cooling
• Thermaltake MeOrb CPU Cooler - Hi Tech Legion

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Antec Sonata Elite Chassis - PureOverclock
• Antec True Power New 750W Power Supply - PCShopTalk
• Eagle Tech Consus P Series 2.5" External HDD Enclosure - Tech-Reviews
• Thermaltake Element T Mid-Tower Chassis - Pro-Clockers

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• CyberPower Gamer Xtreme 3000 System - Legit Reviews
• Fall 2009 System Guide - Tech Report

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