Tech News

AMD Launches “VISION” Program to Enhance Buying Experience

I’m not sure how I missed this yesterday, but AMD released a brand-new initiative to help consumers figure out which PC based on AMD components best suits them. Similar in some regards to how Intel denotes a PC’s capabilities with a 1 – 5 star system, AMD simplifies things just a bit further to have three possible grades, all based around what they call “AMD VISION”.

For basic PCs, a badge that simply says “AMD VISION” will be seen. This badge will signify that the PC is capable of handling all of the basic tasks one would expect from their PC, from e-mail and surfing the web, to listening to music and viewing photos/videos online. For notebooks, it also means long battery-life. The next step up is AMD VISION Premium, which bolsters the multi-media capabilities all-around. Such a PC would be great for ripping CDs, playing games, using a webcam to chat to family, editing photos, converting your videos to play on a mobile player and for enjoying Blu-ray movies.

Then there’s AMD VISION Ultimate, which is for high-end PCs capable of delivering an experience that the other VISION models would simply be unable to. In addition to the requirements the other VISION models would have, Ultimate adds the ability to record live TV, play online games, edit and mix your music, allow for advanced photo-editing and creation of podcasts (yes, this is actually listed) and also creating and editing HD movies. An “Ultimate” PC would also allow the user to “megatask” (multi-task is too tame of a term, apparently).

While I think these VISION badges may help consumers with their purchases, I’m not entirely sold on the fact that how this program is structured is perfect. After all, the only way a consumer would understand these badges would be to do research before-hand, and honestly, I think that the goal of any program like this should be to aide consumers who haven’t done their research.

Intel’s star system is, to me, a bit better, but I almost think that a little bit more is needed. When a consumer sees a badge like this on PCs at the store, they should be able to tell right away whether it’s for them or not. I also consider the fact that the bottom VISION denotation doesn’t have a term applied to it at all… it’s just “AMD VISION”, rather than something like, “AMD VISION Basic”. With no term applied, consumers may look for a VISION badge and automatically assume it’s full-featured, when in this case, it wouldn’t be. Adding the word “Basic” would definitely give a clear message about the PC’s capabilities.

What are your thoughts on this? What would YOU change about the VISION program, or do you think AMD’s on the right track here? Let us know in the forums!

Notebook PCs with VISION Technology from AMD are expected to be widely available on retail shelves and online during the holiday buying season timed to the release of the Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft. Complementing VISION, Windows 7 supports DirectX 10, Direct X10.1, and Direct X11 for richer 3D detail on games and other media apps, and a Unified Video Decoder to free up the CPU so that users can have a superior visual and more responsive computing experience while converting video for use on hand held devices. This last activity is greatly simplified and much more rapid with the new Drag and Drop feature of Windows 7.

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ATI’s Eyefinity Brings Multi-Display Gaming to New Heights

At a press event held by AMD, many ATI-related technologies were unveiled, such as more information pertaining to their DX11 graphics cards. One technology to take the web by storm, though, is the company’s “Eyefinity” multi-display technology, which looks to put all previous multi-display technologies to absolute shame. But, by the looks of things, this will benefit mainly those willing to part with a lot of money.

The Eyefinity technology is scalable, so you can use three displays if you want, or for a more realistic perspective, six. If you paired six 30″ displays together, you’d be able to enjoy your game at the unbelievable resolution of 7680×3200, or 24.5 megapixels. This not only delivers more immersion into your gameplay, but it would also allow you to see more on-screen at a time.

Probably the most amazing demo of them all would have to be the 24 display setup which showed off some flight simulator. With those 24 24″ monitors paired together, the resolution would be 11520×4800, or 55 megapixels. Now that’s intense. Of course, you’d expect that ATI’s newest cards would be capable of handling the performance required to pull off such a task, and it does look as though they will be. Of course, things like anti-aliasing might be considered a luxury, but what part of a 24 – 55 megapixel display isn’t?

While I do think that Eyefinity is cool, I really have to wonder how well such a technology would sell ATI’s products. I can think of few people who own multi-display setups, and they’re certainly not using 30-inch’s or usually even 24’s, much less six of one or the other. Still, for those hardcore gamers with the cash, this looks to become the latest killer app for our gaming.

AMD obviously spent a lot of time on the Eyefinity drivers and they seem to be fairly solid even though the graphics cards won’t be launched for a number of weeks. AMD had a system up and playing the upcoming DX11 racing game, Dirt 2, at 7680 x 3200 with solid performance from the looks of it. Playing games at this resolution will tax the system, but obviously the new Evergreen DirectX 11 graphics card has the muscle to run the game just fine.

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…And Thus Ends the Mystery of Why the Zune Will Never Succeed

Success can mean many things, but where audio players, like the iPod, Sansa, Zune and others are concerned, it’s hard to call something a success when Apple manages to sell so many players, the results would skew a graph if you threw all the numbers in there. Microsoft, for some reason, doesn’t seem to actually want to enjoy success with their Zune, and that confuses me.

I have never owned a Zune, but I have used one from time to time. When the time came where I wanted to purchase an MP3 player with lots of storage, I chose the iPod Classic 120GB, which I wrote about at the time. I had actually wanted the Zune, but the fact that the Zune Marketplace wasn’t available in Canada pretty much killed that idea for me. Although I prefer to buy most of my music in music stores, I still use iTunes fairly frequently to get single tracks, or other albums on the cheap, so given that the iPod 120GB and Zune 120GB cost the same at the time, the decision was a no-brainer.

So here comes along the Zune HD, a player that really looks like it has what it takes to do battle with Apple’s iPod. It features a large screen, NVIDIA’s fast Tegra processor, and unlike all of the iPods on the market, it actually features a radio tuner – and an HD one at that. So what am I complaining about? Oh, just about the fact that once again, consumers outside of the US are getting the shaft.

Let me get this straight. Apple, who has a worldwide reach with both their iPod line-up and their iTunes music store has been pushing incredible sales numbers for years. Then there’s Microsoft, who decides to keep their latest creation, which actually looks pretty damn cool, within the US, along with their Zune Marketplace. I’m no business major, but how exactly does this make sense?

“For the time being the Zune HD device will remain US only,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. “Right now we are focused on deploying an exciting service in the form of Zune Video to 18 markets. We are looking at potential future hardware experiences for these markets, but do not have anything to announce right now.” That’s the official word, despite reports from April 2009 indicating that this year’s Zune platfrom update would be an international one.

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Windows 7 – A Happy OS?

For Windows users, the general consensus is that 7 gives people reason to be excited. After all, the OS went through a lengthy beta-test process, and came out fairly unscathed. That in itself is impressive, given the horrible reception Vista suffered. So while Microsoft still has reason to be concerned over their OS that will never die, the company can at least relax in the knowledge that they’ll avoid another debacle like the one experienced two-and-a-half years ago.

With Windows 7 so well-received… how would you put your mood towards it in words? Excited? Happy? Fascinated? Happy? Amazed? Happy? Smitten? Happy? Enthralled? Oh, happy? Well you’re certainly not alone, as Microsoft’s newly-launched TV spot proves. Kylie, a little girl featured previously in an “I’m a PC” commercial, returns to let people know just how happy Windows 7 is.

Quite the instigator, Kylie checks out her dad’s PC and can’t help but notice all the “happy” words on the screen. It’s a news aggregator, and shows many headlines from notable sources that state how great 7 is. Kylie is so excited, that she even feels compelled enough to highlight one for emphasis. Then, unbelievably, she finds a PowerPoint presentation with even more happy quotes.

I think it’s obvious what this commercial’s goals are, and Microsoft is extremely creative about getting the message out. If you have a PC lying around unsecured, your daughter or other family members are going to hop on, and some might even fish around more than you’re comfortable with. So for love of all that’s happy, make sure you hide that “folder” well!

Kylie tells us she’s found happy words, lots of them. Yes, they are happy, happy reviews of Windows 7–from such august names as, well, CNET. Kylie makes a slideshow so that we can clearly see just how everyone thinks Windows 7 is the not a blister like Vista. As the same tune that tells you there are very few seconds left in an NBA game–yes, Europe’s “The Final Countdown”–intones with gay abandon, Kylie says: “I’m a PC and more happy is coming.”

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Family Guy Episode Resulted in Huge Number of FCC Complaints

It used to be South Park, but today, it’s Family Guy that likes to push people’s buttons. This fired-then-rehired show is one of my personal favorites, and while I find it hilarious most of the time, I can understand why some people get up in arms that it’s broadcast on a Sunday evening, opposite the likes of The Simpsons. But, that’s something I also like about it… that it pushes the envelope – sometimes a wee bit too far.

There’s one episode that aired last season that actually didn’t do too much for me. In fact, I’d have to say it is one of the very few Family Guy episodes I didn’t like. It wasn’t the subject matter, but the fact that the jokes just seemed forced, and it was clear that the writers wanted to really push things a bit too far, to stir up some controversy.

They were successful. The episode was “Family Gay”, and it didn’t just feature one bad joke, but plenty. It kicks off with a mentally disabled horse, continues along to Peter winding up at a gay orgy and finishes with Mort throwing the previously-mentioned horse (now dead) through the Griffin’s window. There’s a lot that happened in between, but rest assured, some jokes were extreme, and gross.

Interestingly enough, it was this episode that spawned a massive, and negative, response. To put things into perspective, during the month prior to the show’s airing, the FCC received a total of 505 complaints, regarding various things that aired on TV that someone disagreed with. As a result of this particular Family Guy episode, the FCC received a staggering 179,997 during the month it aired.

Thankfully for the producers of the show… this kind of publicity isn’t exactly going to hurt anything.

As is usually the case with these campaigns, PTC gave its readers the chance to “take action now” by filling out a pre-scripted FCC Web complaint with details about the show, enabling a potentially limitless number of champions of decency to file objections with the Commission. And as we’ve noted in the past, it’s easy to pile the gripes on, because the FCC does not require complainers to certify that they’ve actually seen the program in question.

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Sega’s Last Console, Dreamcast, Turns Ten

Today is significant. No, it’s not because we launched a totally kick-ass contest (although that IS cool), and no, it’s not because Apple updated iTunes to version 9. Rather, today is special because it marks the 10th anniversary of when Sega launched their Dreamcast console in  North America. Sega chose to release the future-thinking console on a date no one could forget… 09/09/99.

What made the Dreamcast so special is that it was advanced… so advanced, that in some regards it could put the PlayStation 2 (which was released a year later) to shame. I dare anyone who disagrees with that to put a high-end Dreamcast game up against even recent PlayStation 2 titles. Then we have features like a modified version of Windows CE running as the OS, and a modem connection built right into the console. It even came with a web browser!

Though the Dreamcast lived a short life, being discontinued only a year-and-a-half after its launch, it remains to me as being one of the best consoles of all time. What made it were the games… they were fun, and that’s what matters. Personal favorites include Crazy Taxi, Dead or Alive 2, Giga Wing 2, Grandia II, Ikaruga, Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, Sonic Adventure, San Francisco Rush 2049, Skies of Arcadia and SoulCalibur.

Surprisingly enough, after the console was discontinued, the releases didn’t stop trickling out. Rather, there have been dozens of games to see a launch, but mostly in Japan (including an awesome top-down shooter called Border Down). According to Shacknews, the releases aren’t done quite yet either… a company by the name of Senile Team is going to be releasing a top-down racer game called Rush Rush Rally Racing. Purchasing a copy is very, very tempting…

Among the official games are Dreamcast online games that could be played over the Internet. The online servers were run by SegaNet, Dreamarena, and GameSpy networks. Online game support was particularly popular in Japan, with releases of network compatible games such as Tech Romancer and Project Justice. Web browsers were developed by independent companies such as Planetweb to allow access to web sites and included features like Java, uploads, movies, and mouse support. Dreamarena came with games such as Sonic Adventure, and Chu Chu Rocket.

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Apple Updates iTunes to Version 9, Introduces iTunes LP

As expected, Apple today released a deluge of new products, from an iPod nano featuring a camera, to a $59 iPod shuffle to the revised touch line-up (which for a given density costs $10 more than the Zune HD, rather than $100 more). Of all the press releases we received, though, the one to really catch my eye was regarding a new iTunes release. Not a minor version update, but a major one… iTunes 9.

Recall the post we made last month which discussed the recording industry’s upcoming format that would essentially bundle many extras into a simple package? We also touched on the fact that Apple was working on such a thing as well, and believe it or not, it’s here. It’s called the iTunes LP, and it does a lot of what we expected it to.

Picture a DVD movie. There are few that don’t include a variety of special features, and for the most part, the idea has been carried over to iTunes LP. Picture purchasing an album, and then having access to an interactive menu that avails special artwork, miscellaneous videos, liner notes and so forth. That’s just what iTunes LP is, and I have to say, the implementation doesn’t look too bad at all.

Like the rest of iTunes’ catalogue, iTunes LP albums will be priced based on various factors – some will be a lot less expensive than others. Currently, most of the LP’s available are being sold for between $13.99 – $19.99, and I assume the amount of extras that come included are factored into the pricing. These LPs can only be viewed through iTunes – not on an iPod. Also, I’m not sure whether or not these LPs act as an archive, or whether the individual songs can be handled separately. If any of the launch LPs interested me, I’d take a chance, but I’ll pass for now.

iTunes LP is just one of the few updates made to iTunes, but it’s one of the most notable. I do have to say, though, that iTunes 9 as a whole is awesome. This is coming from someone who has hated iTunes in general up to this point (despite having purchased a fair amount of music via the service). The new version looks a lot better (and cleaner), seems to react much more quickly to basically everything, and is overall just more of a pleasure to use.

I have to ask though… why did Apple have to go remove the Shopping Cart?! Was I the only one to actually use it? With that, allow me to thank Apple for wiping out the group of songs that were sitting in there. As if I’ll remember what I had in there!

The visual experience of the record album returns with iTunes LP. Download select albums and experience a beautifully designed, interactive world right in your iTunes library on a Mac or PC — many are created by the artists. While you listen to your favorite songs, you can dive into animated lyrics and liner notes, watch performance videos, view artist and band photos, and enjoy other bonus materials. And become an even bigger fan.

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Windows XP Usage Continues to Drop

Have you ever been in a situation where you wished something would just go away, so that you could finally just get on with your life? It could be anything, from a person, a nasty software issue, to anything, really. For Microsoft, the bug that won’t disappear is Windows XP. It might seem strange to think about, but that OS is over eight years old, and it’s still the dominant version of Windows.

But Microsoft can finally begin to relax, because it looks like XP’s market share is finally starting to go down, albeit a bit slowly. Usage fell 1.1% during August, which may seem small, but that’s 1.1% of the entire Internet, so it’s not exactly insignificant. One main reason for the drop is no doubt the looming release of Windows 7, which has had great reception during its beta stage.

Since I love delving into stats like this, I decided to check out how things have fared on our site over the past few months. Between August 8 and September 8, 56% of the 88% of people who use Windows to visit our site were running XP. By comparison, 57.39% ran XP from July to August and 58.94% from June to July. Going way back to January of this year, during that month, 63.55% of our readers were running XP.

I’m very interested to see how things will go as soon as Windows 7 hits. Sadly, our stats software isn’t capable of singling out 7 right now for some reason, so I assume it groups it in with Vista.

XP’s continuing dominance presents a serious problem for Microsoft. Enterprises staying with XP means they’re not paying for upgrades to Vista or Windows 7. As for consumers who opt to stay with XP, the problem isn’t really upgrade revenue, because consumer upgrades are a drop in the bucket. The real problem is that XP users don’t buy new PCs, and so Microsoft is losing out on new sales.

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The PlayStation 3 Slim is Great, But…

Where Sony’s PlayStation 3 is concerned… there’s one aspect that’s a little interesting. To understand it better, take a look at Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Since that console’s launch, there have been multiple revisions made, and to my knowledge, all of them are for the better – despite price drops over the years. The PlayStation 3 didn’t experience the same transformation, sadly, and as a result, the original 60GB model is still a hot commodity.

So what on earth would cause someone to seek out that older model rather than purchase a newer, and probably more affordable system? Simple: Backwards Compatibility. One of the absolute best features of the PS3 (in my opinion) is the ability to play both PlayStation One and 2 games, partly in thanks to the fact that I own near 100 games from each of those consoles.

If you had a massive entertainment center, then sure, adding a PlayStation 2 is not really a problem. But if your limited in space, putting another console on the stand might not be an option. Plus… having everything confined to one console is simply more convenient. I won’t even touch on the fact that the PS3 has the ability to upscale… and it does a pretty good job of it.

There’s also another feature missing on the most-recent Slim release… the ability to install Linux. Of course, that reason will effect a lot less than the backwards compatibility, but it’s still a notable issue. Either way, I consider the backwards compatibility to be rather important, and it’s for that reason that I really, really hope that my launch PS3 doesn’t die anytime soon.

At least on eBay you can see what they are actually selling for.” So what are they selling for? “It looks like the 60GB are going for about $250 to $270. Closer to retail, but nothing dramatic yet.” You can look at that number two ways: the $600 systems have dropped in value dramatically, or that people are willing to pay nearly the going retail price for a three year-old system.

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Welcome to Lynnfield: Core i for the Mainstream

For those who haven’t noticed, we posted an article late last night that takes a hard look at Intel’s brand-new Lynnfield processors, the Core i7-870 and also the Core i5-750. The wait for these puppies has been long, but it’s been well worth it, because both deliver just what we’re looking for: performance, efficiency and also the right price. With the i5-750 coming in at $199, the performance to dollar value is very high.

Due to time, we weren’t able to include overclocking information in our launch article, but that will be coming along soon. The CPU cooler we received with our Lynnfield kit comes from Thermalright, who are well-known (and deservedly so) for producing top-quality products. But with the model we were sent, the MUX120, a thinner version of the Ultra-120, there was just one issue. Rather than include a mount that works, the company decided to opt for the push-style bracket that we see on Intel stock coolers. But unlike the Intel stock cooler, this mount simply didn’t agree with me at all, and it’s in such rough shape at this point, that it’s useless.

Here’s my plea to Thermalright that they revert to the old mounts… these new ones take far too much effort to use. At least with the Intel cooler, you have lots of room to work. But with the Thermalright, it’s tall, and leaves little room for your hands to maneuver. The old mount wasn’t perfect either, but at least it didn’t take 20 minutes to install or cause you to break out in a sweat! Despite the troubles though, the cooler did perform beautifully, both with regards to temperatures and the max overclocks we were able to achieve (as you will soon see).

If you’re in the position to be building a new PC, Intel’s new Lynnfield chips are well worth looking out for. The pricing is right, the performance is excellent (the i5-750 outperformed our entire Core 2 Quad collection in most tests) and the power consumption amazing. Just in time for the NFL kickoff, Intel has certainly scored a touchdown with Lynnfield.

With the introduction of the Core i5-750, we finally have a ~$200 option. We’re avoiding ultra-expensive motherboards this time around also, as companies such as ASUS and Gigabyte are prepping to release boards that range anywhere from $140 – $300. And because Lynnfield drops us back to a dual-channel memory controller, memory kits are plentiful, and affordable.

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Commodore 64 Emulator Available on Apple’s App Store

A few months ago, many people decided that they had enough of Apple’s App Store’s approval process, and what resulted was numerous complaints posted around the web on various blogs. The most notable was at Gizmodo, where the author raised many legitimate concerns and questions. In the end, Apple seemed somewhat selfish in deciding what can be allowed in the store, and if it’s not that, then usually the reason was still a little off.

When I posted the above-linked news article, there was one app in particular I couldn’t get out of my head… the Commodore 64 emulator. After all, it looked absolutely fantastic, and well polished, and hey, it offers old C64 games on the iPhone! What’s not to love about that? Sadly, Apple originally denied the app as its design allowed executable code to be run. Despite the code being ancient, it just couldn’t happen.

So, the developers did what they had to do to fix the situation, and for the most part, all they did was take out the command-line interpreter – meaning a more locked-down emulator. For those who had no interest in the CLI, you’ll have nothing to worry about, as the games will still run fine. And thanks to the in-app store menu, you’re able to download new games on the fly.

The app costs $4.99 and includes five games (Dragon’s Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck and Jack Attack). Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to exist a list of games available for purchase, but hopefully one will be released soon. Either way, it’s great to see such a cool app finally make its way into the store… let’s just hope that this will pave the way for other PC/console game emulators.

It’s true, the wait is over and Commodore 64 for iPhone has been approved by Apple. The road was bumpy, but we remained persistent and made the changes Apple was looking for. Ultimately, BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it. Despite it’s absence, BASIC is not our focus, ultimately fans of the C64 want games. To that end, we’re working on lots of additional titles that will be available as a separate free or paid download.

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Building an NVIDIA ION-based HTPC for $600

We posted just earlier about building your own Hackintosh, but how about building an HTPC on the cheap? When Intel first released their Atom processor, I’m willing to bet that they had absolutely no idea of what was to come. Sure, they could predict, but the actual reaction surely defied any of those. Atoms found their way into netbooks, nettops and other unique devices (like the EeeTop), and thanks to NVIDIA’s ION, they’re also found in an HTPC.

Technology is constantly moving and improving, but I still can’t help but be struck by how much value there is in computers today. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to build a sweet system, which is a stark contrast to years ago when spending $2,000 would get you a PC that could get you by, depending on what you want to do. With the advent of the HTPC, many have considered adding such a machine to their home, but who really wants to spent a lot of money to get it done? Not many, and luckily that excuse can’t really be used today.

Our friends at Legit Reviews decided to take on the task of building an HTPC on the cheap, and it’s a good one. It features an ASUS motherboard, a 250GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, a slot-loading Blu-ray player and a Travla mini-ITX chassis. Grand total? Just $577.09. Yes, for under $600, you could build your own HTPC capable of playing the latest Blu-ray movies.

As you’d expect, the machine handles HD video fine, but the CPU usages do go a bit high depending on the codec used, especially on YouTube HD videos. That’s why NVIDIA’s ION is a blessing – the video would stutter like no tomorrow if the acceleration was left entirely up to Atom. Perhaps the best part of HTPCs and this one in particular is the power consumption… 36W during a Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood run, and 33W with Blu-ray. Ahh, technology’s great.

Oh, and for those looking for an alternative ION machine to build up, be sure to check out 2Tired2Tango’s look at one of Asrock’s offerings here.

After going to the Legit Reviews YouTube channel I fired up an HD video of a Yellow Garden Spider that I filmed this week and found that it was stutter free in standard definition video mode. I did take notice that the CPU usage was bouncing around 50% though, which just goes to show that the original Intel Atom 230 processor with just a single core and Hyper-Threading would have been running at 100% CPU load just to watch a video on YouTube.

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Building a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard for $900

Fans of Apple’s computers tend to disagree, but the facts are there… Macs are expensive. Go to Apple.com, and find their least-expensive Mac offering, then compare the individual parts at a site like Newegg. You’ll not only wind up with a more customized computer, but you’re likely to build a faster one as well. That’s the idea being the “Hackintosh”… a custom-built Macintosh.

The process of building a faux Mac has gotten a lot easier over the years. Even just five years ago, the process was incredibly difficult, and the end result was something more of a gadget to goof around with rather than a usable machine. But the move to Intel’s architecture blew the doors wide open, and even Apple themselves likely didn’t expect Hackintoshes to grow in popularly so quickly.

So what does it take to build your very own Mac computer? Well for the most part, building one is quite similar to building any other computer, but there are many little steps that are required to get things up and running, thanks mostly due to OS X, which is an operating system that knows what it wants. If your hardware doesn’t match up, it doesn’t want to run, and that’s half the fun of such a build.

Adam Pash at Lifehacker put together a rather in-depth guide on how to build your Hackintosh, from start to finish. There is one thing I noticed though, that I find rather interesting. When Hackintoshes first came to be known, the required hardware was rather limiting, and it looks like that hasn’t changed. Even the motherboard is similar. Then there’s the graphics card… a now phased-out NVIDIA’s 9800 GTX, which course has been replaced by the faster GTS 250. I have to wonder if the newer card simply wouldn’t work? If so, then it seems even Hackintoshes limit your choice of hardware!

Either way, this is a great guide for anyone looking to get this done. And I can’t imagine a much better feeling than knowing that you built the equivalent of a $2,000 Mac for under a thousand.

The most expensive iMac, by comparison, has only a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of memory for $2,200 ($1,300 more than my build, but it is built into a monitor), while the cheapest Mac Pro has a single 2.66GHz Quad-Core processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 640GB hard drive-and it costs $2,500 ($1,600 more than mine, though it’s a different and better processor and DDR3 rather than DDR2 RAM). In short, my $900 “Hack Pro” sports nearly as good or better hardware than any Mac that Apple sells short of the $3,300 8-Core Mac Pro (which can, incidentally, get more expensive, but it won’t get much better).

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Could Intel’s Braidwood Lessen SSD Appeal?

Does there exist a computing enthusiast right now who wouldn’t want a solid-state disk in their PC? Of course not, and as it stands, there are many who’ve opted to upgrade their storage and make their computer all the more faster, from quicker application launching to smoother operation. What’s not to like? Of course, there’s the costs and densities, but even those are getting better as time goes on.

With SSDs hogging so much of the computing limelight lately, what on earth could dampen its outlook? Well according to a report written by Objective Analysis, a Los Gatos, California firm, Intel’s Braidwood (seriously, that’s a code name?) has a good chance at it. In the simplest of explanations, Braidwood would add one of Intel’s NAND flash memory chips directly to the motherboard, allowing for improved performance.

Ranging in densities from 4GB – 16GB, and price-ranges of $10 – $20, this addition would promise to increase to reliability and overall system access speeds. It could act as a cache and allow data to be written to the hard drive in such a way that it won’t lag your machine, which is one of the major benefits of SSDs. Plus, as the chip would be based on SLC technology, it would be reliable, fast, and still much cheaper than typical DRAM.

The report clearly states that the technology has real potential to hurt SSD sales, since the overall performance boost would almost negate the overall speed increase that an SSD would offer. Intel disagrees and claims Braidwood has huge reliability features, which is no doubt true. In the end, I find it hard to believe that Braidwood could actually lesson the desire for people to own SSDs, but it will be interesting to see how things pan out when the technology is launched next year.

An Intel spokesman disagreed with Objective Analysis’ premise that Braidwood could hurt SSD sales, saying “It’s not just the performance, but also the added reliability…[SSDs] can help facilitate versus a hard drive. We see a long life ahead for SSDs, and won’t stop inventing a variety of other technologies that make computers faster and/or more energy efficient.”

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Microsoft Attacks Linux at the Retail Level

If you’re reading our site and others like it, chances are you are well-versed where technology is concerned, or are at least trying to be. That’s great, because if you understand technology, life will be easier and you’ll always know what you’re looking for when you need to make some tech purchase. Sadly, that’s not how it is for most people, and like me and knitting, many people just don’t care or have the desire to learn about technology or computers.

Those are the people that companies like Microsoft and Apple like to prey on, because after all, it’s easy to be gullible about something you don’t have much interest in. The situation isn’t made much better when retail stores exist to mislead customers, either. Just walk into a Best Buy to see what I’m talking about. And speaking of Best Buy, there’s an interesting thread at Overclock.net that’s pretty eye-opening.

Whenever a hyped product is soon to be released, employees at stores like Best Buy (I should note that Best Buy is certainly not the only store guilty of this) are usually briefed about it, so that they know which points to bring up when talking to customers. With Windows 7, Microsoft for some reason considered Linux to be a large enough threat to have them create course material to explain to people why Linux is inferior. Of course, employees who opt for the training get a perk: $10 Windows 7. Heck, even as a Linux user I’d take the quiz for a $10 copy.

It’s not so much the fact that they are explaining reasons why Linux is lacking, but it’s the fact that a lot of their statements are untrue. In the slide below, they rank Linux extremely low with regards to camera and iPod support and also MP3 compatibility. Anyone who has ever used Linux knows how false this is. I’ve never had a camera not work in Linux, and most iPods work just fine as well. As for MP3 compatibility, Windows 7 might open up a bragging right for Microsoft where media support is concerned, but install Ubuntu and you’ll see an even wider range of support available.

I won’t point out all the false statements, including “Linux is safer then Windows” as being a myth, but I do recommend anyone to look through the thread and find them yourself. Even if you don’t use Linux, they’re clear as day.

No iPod support? Really? And the Zune doesn’t work on the Mac either although there has been some progress from the Linux community. And I’ve never had any problems pulling pictures from cameras. I’ve yet to see a printer that doesn’t have a driver. You might have to download it from the products website though (gasp!). Yeah yeah. Software. Although WINE has been vastly improving lately (we even got around that stupid Secu-ROM). There are free alternatives to all of the Windows Live “essentials”. WOW. Of all the games to mention, they mention World of Warcraft.

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Deadlands 2: Trapped to be Released on HD DVD (You Read that Right)

When Toshiba’s HD DVD died out last year, Sony couldn’t have been happier. Blu-ray won the somewhat lengthy battle, and humorously, it all came down to marketing, and deals made by Sony to the most dominant movie companies. It was a sad end for Toshiba, especially since their format was hardly lacking. In fact, even though I never owned an HD DVD player (but do own a Blu-ray), I always liked Toshiba’s format more. But I won’t get into the reasons as to why here due to space.

After Toshiba made it official that they were pulling out of supporting HD DVD, movies released for the format thinned out very quickly, until a point when it was safe to call the format dead. But not so surprisingly, there are many die-hards of the format who don’t want to let it go, and it’s with that, that one company has worked hard to release just one more movie on the format: Deadlands 2: Trapped.

The company, Anthem Films, posted on High-Def Digests forums a few months ago to gage interest in seeing the release on HD DVD, and the response was overwhelming. They originally hoped for 250 prints of the movie to be made, but it now sits at 500 that will be made, or more if demand suddenly jolts once again. The movie will retail for $29.99, so no deals just because the format is defunct. This will be a collector’s item, after all.

Sure, HD DVD is dead, but I love seeing passionate fans that can make this happen. I was in a similar set of shoes after Sega discontinued their Dreamcast console. Games were still being released years after the company pulled the plug, and there were certainly no complaints from fans. So it’s good to see HD DVD live just a bit longer, even if it does take a flick featuring undeads to get it done.

“I know it’s a gamble with HD DVD having lost out on the format war, but based on feedback from HD DVD fans we expect this to be a huge moment for them, the film and HD DVD. Kind of ironic that a zombie film would be helping HD DVD try to come back from the dead, even if for a short period of time, but who knows, if the program is a success maybe other indie filmmakers and distributors can do something similar for the HD DVD fans and keep it alive for the hard core.”

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AMD to Launch Six-Core Processor Next Year

Did you read our news post earlier this week regarding AMD’s new 40W Opteron 2419 EE and wonder to yourself, “Cool, but where in the heck are the desktop variants?” Well, not surprisingly, there is no definitive answer, which is typical of almost any hardware launch. But, X-bit labs received information that claims we’ll see the chips beginning next summer, if all goes well. Alright, that’s not too soon, but it is expected.

The cool thing about these Hexa-Core processors is that they should be fully compatible with current AM3 motherboards, and possibly even AM2+. The architecture will allow for a dual-channel memory configuration supporting DDR3-1333 natively, and as the design follows Istanbul on the server side, you could expect to see the chip equipped with 3MB of L2 Cache, 512KB per core, and 6MB of shared L3 cache.

This six-core chip, codenamed “Thuban” (Arab for “Dragon”), might be released alongside some other new hardware, such as the 890FX and 890GX chipsets. These will bring new features to the table such as support for additional S-ATA ports and of course, the S-ATA 6Gbit/s specification. What else will it include? Only AMD seems to know at this point. It’s still a ways off, but it shouldn’t be too much longer before much more information is revealed.

AMD likely isn’t stressing over the release of Thuban quite yet, as Intel isn’t exactly prepared to release a desktop six-core chip either. That is scheduled to happen towards the middle of next year as well, with Gulftown, built on the 32nm node. Interestingly, Intel’s Hexa-Core, like AMD’s, will be fully compatible with the company’s recent high-end chipset (X58).

Thuban is a star in the constellation of Draco and it also means “dragon” in Arabian language. The new six-core chip should be compatible with existing AM3 infrastructure (and, quite possibly, even with AM2+ infrastructure with split power plane), it remains to be seen whether Thuban becomes a part of AMD’s current high-end desktop platform called Dragon, or will power the company’s next-generation Leo platform.

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Mass Storage on a Budget

The great thing about computing is that the state of things is constantly improving, and fast. Just take a look at what PCs were being sold five years ago compared to today. Or ten years ago. Today’s processors are exponentially faster than previous generations, as are graphics cards. One area that has always been improving and is much appreciated by a huge number of end consumers, though, is storage.

I keenly remember my AMD K6. I don’t remember what kind of hard drive it came with, but after a while, its density became limiting enough to force me to run out and purchase an 8GB model for around $370. Today, people walk around with 8GB or more in their pocket, in a form-factor the size of a key… for less than $20.

Of course, as desktop users, buying storage today isn’t anything to groan about. We can pick up 1,000GB hard drives for under $100, which means we can store a lot of data on the cheap. Imagine, though… needing many terabytes worth of storage, from dozens, up to hundreds, or thousands. The cost of data then adds up fast, and the prices are difficult to stomach.

Hosting service Backblaze was faced with a predicament. They needed tons of data, but after looking at how much large storage solutions from well-known brands cost, they knew they had to handle things themselves. What’s the cost of a Petabyte from well-known companies like Amazon and EMC? $2.8 million. For those not wanting to haul out a calculator, that’s $2,800 per gigabyte. The least-expensive solution was Dell, at $826,000. Backblaze’s solution? $117,000. Now that’s better.

Rather than hoard the information on how to accomplish this, the company released very detail schematics about how it can be done. Some of the hardware, like the chassis, is custom, but if you’re wanting to save an incredible amount of money, then the extra effort required for that is going to be of no real concern. So, what would YOU do with a petabyte of storage?

At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way—and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.

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Good Old Games Offering Buy-One-Get-One on Interplay Catalogue

This past June, we took a look at a rather unique game delivery service called “Good Old Games”, or GOG.com for short. This service, as we saw in the article, offers not brand-new games, but rather old, older and very, very old classic PC games. Since I became a member of the service, I’ve bought nearly twenty different titles, so you could say I’m a fan.

Well, the service has just about hit its first anniversary, and to celebrate, the company is offering up Interplay’s entire game catalogue available on the site as a buy-one-get-one kind of deal. Buy one game for $5.99, get another for free… it’s simple. It’s an unlimited deal, so you can purchase as many, or as little games as you want. So if there’s any older titles you want to fill out your collection, there’s many here.

Actually, there’s a total of thirty-three, and many are true classics. These include Fallout 1 and 2, Freespace, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Sacrifice, Earthworm Jim, MDK, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, Castles 1 and 2, Descent 1, 2 and 3, Redneck Rampage, Jagged Alliance and more. Maybe I should stop looking now… I own most of these games, but I sure don’t have the time to play them all!

If you do want to pick up some new old games though, you might want to act fast as there are only six days left to this deal.

GOG.com launched the Early Access Beta at the beginning of September 2008 with just two publishers (Interplay and Codemasters) onboard and about 40 games in its catalogue. Since then close to 30 publishers and developers have embraced GOG’s brand of DRM-free digital distribution and signed worldwide deals with the site. Together they offer GOG’s enthusiastic fan community nearly 140 classic games, including such gems from PC gaming’s past as the Fallout series, Heroes of Might and Magic I through III, Duke Nukem 3D and Beneath a Steel Sky, which is offered for free to all GOG.com users.

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Benchmarking the Latest Hardware is Fun, Unless…

Do you think that benchmarking the latest hardware and writing about it is some sort of paradise? I admit, what I do for a living is fun, or else I wouldn’t be doing it. But, there are occasions when things don’t work out as planned, and the frustration levels go dangerously high. I think all of what I’ve dealt with over the past few days is rather crazy, so I decided to post about it.

With Intel’s Lynnfield right around the corner, time is currently tight. Because of all the things that kept me from getting things done this month, we were behind on getting our AMD Phenom X4 965 Black Edition review posted. Since I received that CPU long before Lynnfield, the sensible thing to do was to shift its priority to a high level in order to get something posted prior to Intel’s embargoed content.

That’s fine though, right? After all, it’s just a speed-bump. Pop it in, benchmark and post the review. Ahh, if only it were that simple! I tend to have a knack for things going wrong, and to spice things up, if one thing goes wrong, something else usually goes wrong right afterwards. The week began out with me building up our AMD test machine this past Sunday night. The first problem? I couldn’t find the same RAM kit we have used in the past. RAM is tricky… it’s thin, and can hide pretty much anywhere.

So with that being a bust, and our testing motherboard (Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H) refusing other DDR2 memory I had, I ended up moving to a newer AM3 DDR3 board to get the testing done, even though that’s hardly an ideal route to take. After setting that machine up, the problems didn’t end. Performance wasn’t really up to snuff, and even at this point I’m unsure why. Late Monday night though, I stumbled on the RAM for the previous board (last time I set a stack of magazines on a kit of RAM), so I decided to move back to the MA790GP-DS4H.

The problems were far from over. In order to verify that performance was on par with what we should be seeing, I installed the Phenom X4 810 to run a few benchmarks, to compare the results to our previously-published review. Not surprisingly, the results for each benchmark was about 8 – 10% lower than it should have been. After a very lengthy back and forth with our latest recruit, Robert Tanner (Kougar), we finally figured out that one of our installed drivers (I believe the LAN) had a memory leak, and as a result, up to 8% of the CPU’s power was being hogged constantly. That explained the loss. Upgrading to the latest driver solve that problem.

With performance back to normal, all should have been good to go, right? Well of course, but that again wasn’t the case. After I installed the 965, there was a serious issue. After running Cinebench, the performance didn’t stack up, and after a couple of runs, the PC would shut itself off. Take a look at the above picture, and you can understand why. Mis-mounted CPU cooler? Nope. At this point I’m not entirely sure whether this is a CPU issue or a BIOS issue, but I’m leaning towards the latter.

As it turns out, the BIOS was applying way more voltage than it should have been. The BIOS detected the “default” voltage for the CPU to be 1.4v (still high, but workable), but for some reason, it was actually pushing near 1.5v, according to CPU-Z. So after manually adjusting the voltage to have the CPU sit at around 1.325v, I’m finally getting expected results, and the CPU hasn’t gone above 60C.

Whew, what fun! Here’s to hoping I don’t run into issues like this when getting down and dirty with Intel’s Lynnfield! You can also expect our review of the Phenom X4 965 soon (unless the computer blows up).

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Are Gold-Buying Services As Worthy As They Claim to Be?

Ahh, the Super Bowl. A time to get together with your best buds to watch what’s arguably the most important sports game of the year in the US. It’s a time for joy, or if your favorite team didn’t make it, regret. Whatever your stance though, everyone always enjoys what co-exists with the event – the commercials. The Super Bowl is unique in that regard, because it’s an event where viewers actually want to watch the commercials, due to their humor and high-budget production value.

It was interesting this past year when one of the commercials to air was from the company Cash4Gold. The reason it caught many off guard, including me, is because prior to this, the company really only ever saw airtime on channels during the late night and early day, and if it was during the evening, it was probably on a lower-budget station that only plays syndicated content.

I personally can’t stand the commercials for gold buyers. It’s not just Cash4Gold. On the channels I watch, I’d estimate I see commercials on a regular basis from at least five different companies, and while none of the commercials are interesting to watch, Cash4Gold actually has the more tame and less-fist-clenching of the bunch. So, are these gold buyers as worthwhile as they claim to be?

Not so much, but it depends on how you want to go about things. Consumer Reports recently did some tests with Cash4Gold and others, and they found that the money you get back pales in comparison to the real value of the gold, and also compared to what a pawn shop would pay. In fact, it was found that pawn shops on average were willing to pay up to 3x as much as these other companies, including Cash4Gold.

There’s a lot more to this story than I can talk about in a multiple paragraph news posting, so I recommend you check out the rather sizable news article at the Consumerist, linked below.

Our tests – which lasted from May through early July – found that Cash4Gold and its competitors offered simple and relatively transparent service. Online tracking systems were updated promptly, the companies generally mailed out checks within a day or two, and customer service reps were courteous and professional. The actual offers, however, were miserly. Cash4Gold sent back checks ranging from $7.60 to $12.72 (or 11% to 18% of melt value), the lowest amounts of any firm. But others weren’t far behind: GoldKit offered $7.81 to $20.59, and GoldPaq $8.22 to $13.11.

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How Long Should Developers Support their Software?

When Apple’s Mac OS X “Snow Leopard” came out last weekend, many ran to their local Apple reseller to pick up their $29 copy. Upgrading to a new OS is always a fun occasion, usually. You get the latest features of the OS, refinements and of course, security patches – not to mention that “fresh PC” feeling. But there is one rather sizable caveat when it comes to upgrading… compatibility and support.

Once Snow Leopard was released, Adobe issued a release that said the company wouldn’t be officially supporting their CS3 (2007) software for use in the OS, and not surprisingly, many users were up in arms. After all, Adobe’s software isn’t exactly inexpensive, ranging from between $200 – $2500 depending on the product, and not everyone feels the need to upgrade with every new version. So it’s easy to understand why people were upset.

It’s important to note that the software functions just fine under Snow Leopard. It’s just the official support for CS3 (and likely other Adobe products) that’s not available. The debacle raises an interesting question, though. Just how long should developers continue to support their software, and can anyone really blame them for not supporting an OS that was released long after their product was?

Adobe software is expensive (but not for what it does), but this is an issue aside from money. Even if the software was $50 a pop, would there be such an uproar? With Windows 7 right around the corner, it looks like CS3 won’t be supported there either, so it will be interesting to see if Windows users are as vocal as Mac users on the subject.

“While older Adobe applications may install and run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), they were designed, tested, and released to the public several years before this new operating system became available,” said Adobe. “You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution. Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard.”

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Ars Technica’s Exhaustive Look at OS X “Snow Leopard”

Apple’s Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” was released last weekend to a lot of mixed reaction. While the $29 price tag is undoubtedly easy to stomach compared to the $100+ consumers usually pay for a new OS, many still don’t believe that they got their money’s worth. Our friend Cyril Kowaliski at The Tech Report, a Mac user, had only one thing to say… “So that’s why it only costs $29“.

The reason for the mixed reaction is simple… there are few new features in 10.6. When Apple first announced Snow Leopard at last year’s WWDC conference, they actually showed a slide that stated, “0 New Features”, which you could imagine sparked quite a bit of questioning. The lack of features was replaced with brand-new APIs and other developer-specific additions, as well as a near-complete re-write of the underlying OS. The latter non-feature feature is the reason for noteworthy performance-boosts.

If you’d still debating on whether you should purchase the latest version or not, or simply want to read up to find out what’s new and notable, down to the most inane detail, Ars Technica has posted an exhaustive 23-page review that gives new meaning to an “in-depth look”. I’m not kidding. Unless we start publishing articles over 30,000 words in length, I’m not sure we have the right to use the term ourselves!

The article tackles everything from its pricing to its 64-bit nature to its base 10 numerical system for filesizes to developer-specific information to OpenCL support to the revised dock to finder updates to… whew. I’m actually quite tempted to read through just to get a better grasp on how an OS I don’t use works. For now, I’m going to take a few Aspirin, as I somehow have developed a headache…

A major operating system upgrade with “no new features” must play by a different set of rules. Every party involved expects some counterbalance to the lack of new features. In Snow Leopard, developers stand to reap the biggest benefits thanks to an impressive set of new technologies, many of which cover areas previously unaddressed in Mac OS X. Apple clearly feels that the future of the platform depends on much better utilization of computing resources, and is doing everything it can to make it easy for developers to move in this direction.

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Windows 7 Family Pack Available for Pre-Order

Last month, we posted about Microsoft’s Anytime Upgrade and Family Pack pricing for Windows 7, and it looks like the latter is kicking off right now, in pre-order form. It’s not yet available on Amazon.com, but both eCOST.com and Provantage have them listed – both for a price lower than we reported about before. eCOST’s price is about $147, while Provantage’s is $140. The latter is also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, so you can be confident about ordering it there.

As a refresher, the Windows 7 Family Pack is suited for those who already have a copy of Windows installed on their PC, up to three. For Windows Vista, the upgrade path is simple, as long as the editions and architecture match. If you’re running XP, you can still upgrade, but it will have to be via a clean install (which I’d opt for – who doesn’t love a clean machine?).

At $150, the cost per copy is $50, which is a relative steal given that a single upgrade copy of Home Premium sells for $120. Essentially, you’re getting two extra copies for $15 each. The downside, is that these copies are supposed to be limited, so if you want to hook yourself up, you shouldn’t waste anytime at all. If you missed the original half-price sale, don’t make the same mistake twice!

Windows 7 is still set to be released on October 22, and I’d estimate that into the new year, we’ll convert all of our test machines over to it from Vista, unless some good reason creeps up to stop us. Because Windows 7 supports TRIM, we’re likely to begin using the OS well before the official release for our SSD content, since unfortunately, Microsoft is not planning to support TRIM in any previous OS, including Vista.

Credit: madstork91

Microsoft originally said Family Pack would only be available in North America. However, earlier this week the company extended its release to eight countries in Europe — U.K., Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden — because of its decision to release Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 8 installed in those countries.

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Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD

Earlier this year, Anand Lal Shimpi posted an article at his site called, “The SSD Anthology”. It was a ridiculously comprehensive look at the current (at the time) state of solid-state disks, from their perks to the leading issues. It was also interesting because it was the first time an article was published that caused multiple friends to e-mail me to tell me about it. I guess it’s no surprise that it was read over 2 million times.

Since that article was published, a lot has happened, not surprisingly. “Indilinx” is a name out of everyone’s mouth nowadays, hatred is shown towards Samsung, Intel is still reigning supreme and JMicron… who? So it was time for Anand to follow-up to his successful article, and it also happens to be a great read. I admit I didn’t read the original, but the second one was hard to put down (not that I picked my monitor up).

There’s a lot to glean from this article, and since we are soon going to be publishing SSD content of our own (stay tuned!), it was nice to be able to catch up with the SSD scheme of things. Interestingly enough, even though Intel’s X25-M G2 happens to have a weak sequential write speed compared to, well, everything else, it still comes out on top for various reasons. I find it actually rather incredible that Intel’s first product was so good, that even more than a year later, others still haven’t been able to truly compete with the overall performance.

A few points from the article that I found really interesting was that OCZ’s upcoming Solid 2 series would be utilizing Intel’s 34nm flash chips, but production hasn’t yet began because apparently those chips have slight issues with the Indilinx controller. Hopefully we’ll see those to market soon. Also interesting is the OCZ Vertex Turbo… an SSD with an overclocked controller (which makes a difference, but doesn’t scale with the price premium).

One major issue tackled is Write Amplification, which is explained in some detail in the article, and really highlights why companies need to create smarter controllers… and why TRIM couldn’t get here any sooner. If you have a few hours, the article is definitely worth the read. Thanks to On_Wisconsin for the heads-up on the article.

Credit: AnandTech

The write amplification factor is the amount of data the SSD controller as to write in relation to the amount of data that the host controller wants to write. A write amplification factor of 1 is perfect, it means you wanted to write 1MB and the SSD’s controller wrote 1MB. A write amplification factor greater than 1 isn’t desirable, but an unfortunate fact of life. The higher your write amplification, the quicker your drive will die and the lower its performance will be. Write amplification, bad.

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