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Corsair Launches Low-Latency MacBook Memory
Here’s something you don’t see everyday. Corsair have just released some low-latency memory for MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s, improving on stock and upgrade memory that can be had through Apple or most anywhere else. The press release assumes that Mac users don’t need to know what they are purchasing, because there is absolutely no mention of memory density or what makes these “low-latency”. Luckily, we can judge from the model code that this is a 4GB kit and has a CAS latency of 4.
The kit is available in a 2x2GB configuration, which makes the low-latency status even more important since with higher-density comes higher latency. Having a lower CAS latency will improve performance with certain application tasks, such as importing into Adobe Photoshop and most likely Aperture as well. Corsair claims the new kit will also improve Windows Vista via Bootcamp.
The kit is “immediately available” and retails for $159.99USD. That seems rather high considering a comparable G.Skill kit at NewEgg (identical specs) costs half as much. That kit is not Mac-specific, but architecturally, the modules are not any different than what’s found in a MacBook or MacBook Pro.
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Fremont, CA, March 13, 2008 – Corsair http://www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, announced today the world’s first high performance memory modules made especially for the Mac. The new Corsair memory modules are the industry’s first low latency modules specifically tuned for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro laptop computers.
Blu-ray Players Up In Price With HD DVD Gone
It seems that the format war ending was not all good. Despite people believing prices for Blu-ray would become more reasonable, the opposite effect has occurred. Thanks to the fact that Blu-ray faces absolutely no competition in the high-definition market, why lower the prices? Seems like a simple concept.
According to Tom’s Hardware, while some Blu-ray players have hovered around $300 for the past few months, they are now back up around $400 thanks to the lack of competition. Two cases specifically show one player having gone from $358 to $440 in the past two weeks, while another jumped from $629 to $666. It’s not a great situation for those looking to join the Blu-ray fray. I do stand by my thoughts that the Playstation 3 is a good value for most anyone, however, thanks to the inclusion of Blu-ray playback.
Personally, I am not too concerned with the player prices, though, but rather the prices for the movies themselves. Sure, they are high-definition and offer a lot when compared to DVD, but I think prices will need to go down a bit before wide-spread adoption occurs. Some new releases are reasonably priced, but when most new releases retail for an average of $27… that’s a lot to stomach for the avid movie buyer.
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By looking at these prices, it is pretty clear that the PS3 did in fact almost singlehandedly declare the winner of the format war. Another point worth noting is that all of these players will reach a certain level of obsolescence later this year, as soon as the new BD Profile is released.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
AMD’s B3 Opterons Finally En Route to Vendors
We’ve covered AMD Phenom’s LTB bug to some degree in the past, but hopefully from this point forward, not much more will need to be said. The reason? AMD has finally begun shipping the B3-revision processors which rids the rare, but nasty bug.
Though the first shipment of CPUs goes to vendors, appropriately so, they should become available in the retail channel within the month. In addition to the bug patch, the processors should become more readily available, and will also be seen in frequencies ranging from 1.8GHz to 2.4GHz. The higher-clocked Opterons are in queue to begin appearing this fall.
Are these new releases going to save Phenom? It’s hard to say, but it sure won’t hurt. Coupled with the fact that we will not see higher-clocked chips until later this year and also the fact that current Phenom’s don’t boast great overclocking headroom, the enthusiast market might be slow to pick up on them. Unless prices begin to go down of course. Then things could change entirely.
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In addition to fixing the TLB race condition, AMD will finally increase the core frequency of the Opteron series on the B3 stepping. After the initial OEM orders are filled, channel vendors like Newegg and TigerDirect will carry the new Opterons in frequencies ranging from 1.8 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Vendor estimates put this e-tailer ship date in early April.
Source: DailyTech
Windows Home Server Broke Until Summer
Although Windows Vista wasn’t as widely accepted as Microsoft would have hoped, their Windows Home Server was anticipated all the way up to it’s release. We first took a look at the OS last spring and were pleased overall with what we saw. But, now that the OS is in the hands of many, vicious bugs are beginning to arise, and the one of main concern is ridiculous.
Thanks to an underlying issue which cannot be easily fixed, data corruption can occur, deeming the files useless. One experience related at DailyTech proves just how destructive the bug can be. Tim Slocum had well over 16,000 family photos on the machine, and all were corrupted within a few weeks of use. He decided to start over, deploying a basic OS install without the extras. Again, like the first time, the files were corrupted within a few days.
I am not sure of the details of the bug itself, but for an OS to be released with such a blatant and destructive bug is incredible. How it was not caught in QA is anyone’s guess, but this bug alone should cause anyone who was considering WHS to reconsider their purchase, at least for now. The bug should be ironed out this summer.
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Now Microsoft says the problem is that the underpinnings of WHS are broken, and that a fix is required at a very low level. This will take a good deal of time to develop and validate, according to the WHS Team at Microsoft. The WHS Team hopes to release beta versions of a patch over following months, but states that June is the soonest a finished patch might appear.
Source: DailyTech
Intel D5400XS… Where Are You Hiding?
Just over a month ago, we posted our preview of Intel’s Skulltrail Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform, and it only took a few weeks before it was officially announced. That was a full 22 days ago. The problem that lingers is that it’s still incredibly difficult for anyone to purchase what they need to build a system.
The QX9775 processors began to show up on store shelves (TG shopping link) a few weeks ago, and as expected, the prices hover between $1,600 – $1,700. So what’s the problem, if the processors are readily available? The D5400XS motherboard, which is designed to pair up with these processors, is not readily available.
What a predicament. These ultra-high-end processors are there for the taking, but for some reason, the motherboard is MIA. What makes this situation more frustrating is the fact that there are no real substitutes for the D5400XS. You can use a standard 5400-based server board, but it will not be tweaked for enthusiast purposes, nor include support for SLI. To complicate things even further, ASUS’ Skulltrail solution, the Z7S WS, is also not available at this time. It at least would be a competent substitution, but even it lacks SLI support.
I’ve pinged both Intel and ASUS regarding status on their motherboards and will fill you guys in once I hear back. For those looking for the budget route, don’t forget about our “Building an affordable Skulltrail system” article, which offers solutions to build a similar kick-ass system for just under $3,000.
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Consisting of two Extreme Quad-Core processors, Intel is looking to redefine what we know as “high-end”. Skulltrail is touted as being the “ultimate” enthusiast platform, offering SLI and Crossfire support, huge overclocking abilities and enough sheer power to make the competition weep.
Backing Up Outlook a Breeze With OutlookBackupPro
For whatever reason, backing up any e-mail client seems to be an arduous chore, and one that can end up in disaster if a simple step is missed. I suffered a bad experience with Outlook a few years back and learned my lesson quick. My current client, Mozilla Thunderbird, is far easier to back up, but is still prone to problems. Why these clients don’t offer robust backup options, I have no idea.
Download Squad have posted about a program that takes all of the hassle out of backing up Outlook, my making it a one-click affair (well, almost). Though the full version retails for $40, chances are good it is a worthy investment if you need a safe and secure way to back up all of your e-mails and contacts list.
The application does a bit more than simply backup, though. You also have the ability to set scheduled backups and can even automatically upload your backups to a remote server for safe-keeping, via FTP. So, if your NAS supports FTP, it could even be uploaded there. Sounds like a nifty, but incredibly useful application.
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OutlookBackupPro will backup everything associated with your email account, including signature files, customized stationary, templates, OutNote notes, and all registry entries and system settings associated with Outlook. It will also backup your Outlook PST files. For those among us that can’t even remember our wedding anniversary, the program also offers set-and-forget automated backups.
Source: Download Squad
NVIDIA 9800GTX and GX2 Get Greenlight
It seems like forever that we’ve been waiting to see a 9800GX2 launch, but it’s now closer than ever. According to reports, the 9800GX2 and 9800GTX have gotten the greenlight and are on schedule for release this month. Reviews should be popping up around the web in the weeks to come.
Though there is no major architecture change over the 8-series, these new cards bump up their specs all around, and the GX2 should prove to be the ultimate dual-GPU-single-card solution, especially when compared to ATI’s HD 3870 X2. Though, the HD 3870 X2 has won one part of the contest… looks. The GX2 is truly one of the ugliest card designs I’ve seen. Granted, the cooler serves a specific purpose, but still!
The 9800GX2 will be clocked at 600MHz/2000MHz, while the GTX has a nice boost at 675MHz/2200MHz. The latter is also tri-SLI ready, with dual bridges available.
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NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800GX2 is poised as the ultra high-end enthusiast graphics card. The new adapter takes a page from the GeForce 7950GX2 since it’s actually composed of two G92 cores on a single board. Factories are instructed to set these core frequency at 600 MHz and memory frequencies at 2000 MHz.
Source: DailyTech
dBpoweramp’s Batch Converter Quick to Convert Big Music Collections
If you take pride in your music collection, you no doubt want to stick with reliable applications that perform the job you need done, and can do that job well. I’ve been a user of dBpoweramp for a while, but somehow missed the fact that R12 was released last summer. The most notable feature for me? Batch converting.
I maintain my collection in FLAC format, but like to keep MP3 “backups” of the same music so that I can take it with me on the go… since FLAC tends to be an amazing space-hog. Plus, on an MP3 player, there’s little point of bringing along a quality pair of headphones, unless you don’t mind looking like a fool carrying them around.
The problem is, I have never found a program to reliably convert such a large collection of files. The best solution I have found was using foobar2000’s built-in feature, but it would always crash after every ~500 tracks… very frustrating. So I quickly downloaded the latest Reference dBpoweramp version and figured I’d give the new feature a try.
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In the end, the program converted all 5,015 FLAC files in a mere five hours on a Quad-Core processor. Though the computer contained eight cores (Intel Skulltrail), the developer noted that the reason for only four cores being supported is due to hard drives not being able to keep up. Seems reasonable, but for those with a nice RAID array, such support would be nice.
Five hours may not sound terribly impressive, but it is. Using averages, each track took 16 seconds to convert, and all 5,015 were taken care of with a simple click of the button. Since the program took advantage of the Quad-Core, the total time taken could have been over twenty hours otherwise!
To say I recommend the application would be an understatement. If you take pride in your collection, dBpoweramp still holds its ground as an audiophiles killer-app.
Source: dBpoweramp Official Page
Our 2008 Survey Contest Continues… No Better Time To Enter!
Last week, we launched our third birthday contest and support has been fantastic so far. For those unaware (how could you be??), we are offering up a complete gaming computer, valued at just over $4,500. Everything is included, from 24″ Dell monitor to Logitech peripherals to D-Link gaming router to a Windows Vista and Office 2007 license. You will have to forgive us for not including a power socket… we couldn’t figure out how to reasonably include one.
To enter, all you need to do is hit up our contest page and take the survey. After entering your e-mail address, you will receive a unique URL in your inbox, allowing you to partake in our twenty-question survey, mostly consisting of multiple-choice questions. If you don’t receive the e-mail, check your spam boxes! The entire survey takes about three minutes to complete… a very small price to pay for a chance at such a great computer… plus it helps us out a ton in the process!
Thanks once again to all of our sponsors, especially ASUS who went above and beyond by donating a kick-ass motherboard, two GPUs and their incredible Xonar sound card. Other sponsors are Crucial, Dell, D-Link, Intel, LG, Logitech, Microsoft, Seagate, Thermaltake, Ultra, Ultrasone and Zalman.
Don’t be afraid to spread the news of our contest… we’d love to see as much support as possible!
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We put our prize together with care. With much discussion of the staff, the resulting PC is very similar to what most of us would have built ourselves if we had $5,000 to spare. Each one of the components included were chosen by us, and from companies that we personally trust.
Source: Techgage 2008 Survey Contest
Is Defragging On a Budget Possible?
On a Windows machine, a big part of life is hard drive defragging – the process of stacking all of the blocks together to make for quicker access. According to the Workers’ Edge blog at Cnet, defragging can also increase the life of your hard drive. The theory sounds reasonable to me. The less your drive needle has to move, the longer it should last.
Finding a good defragging application can be a tough task though, if you don’t want to spend any money. My personal favorite for years has been Diskeeper. It’s feature-robust, and can defrag whenever the PC is idle, or run at a specified time each night in order to make sure your computer is always defragged whenever you set foot on it. The smallest version available is $30, which I consider to be a great value. But, it’s not free.
The same blog as mentioned above wholeheartedly recommends Auslogics Disk Defrag, which is a completely free solution and improves vastly on the built-in Windows defrag application. I don’t think that goal would be too difficult to accomplish, considering Windows defrag application is lackluster in all regards. Auslogics is well worth a look if you are wanting to defrag on a budget.
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I wish I could say that I’m guaranteed to recoup many times over the time I spent defragging my PCs by having them run so much faster post-defrag. Maybe I’m kidding myself that there’s any practical benefit to defragging, but then again, maybe my dog wouldn’t smell any worse without a bath.
Source: Workers’ Edge Blog
Our ASUS VW222 Review To Be Updated Later This Week
Yesterday, we posted a review of ASUS’ 22-inch VW222 display, which we were not too impressed with. The unit we had suffered from screen-door effects, bad coloration, poor image quality and other negligible issues.
ASUS has since responded to the review and strongly believe that we received a bad unit. We should have a replacement within the next few days, and Matt will take a fresh look at the display again. After some consideration, chances of us receiving a poor unit are reasonably good.
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Originally, ASUS sent us two of these displays at the same time for a purpose outside of a review. One of those displays showed up broken, so poor shipping could have damaged our review sample as well. We will know in a few days, so stay tuned.
Intel Yorkfield to Ship This Week?
Intel’s 45nm launch last November was a great time. Their new CPUs offered better efficiency along with other perks that made it a great choice over their previous 65nm offerings. But, even though people everywhere were craving for some 45nm action, very few models were available to purchase. Up to now, only the Dual-Cores have been on e-tailer shelves, and even they are few.
According to numerous reports, however, we should be seeing these new 45nm Quad-Cores (Q9350, Q9450 and Q9550) on store shelves this week. If true, then that means Intel hit their adjusted “late Q1” launch time by a few weeks. But most importantly, it means people will finally be able to purchase the new CPUs for their own machines. For many people, these new desktop Quad’s are a lot more affordable than the 3.0GHz QX9650, which retails for just over $1,000, but was and still is kick-ass in all regards.
TG Daily is also reporting that Intel recently ramped up production for their 45nm offerings and have been churning out over 100,000 chips per day. On top of that, even though Intel put in a staggering $12 billion into the development of Penryn and it’s siblings, they expect to see over $80 billion in revenue in the years to come. Now that is a nice profit!
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Add everything up and you have $12 billion at the bottom line. It is a massive investment, and virtually impossible to match by companies such as AMD, but Intel expects something in return, of course: Otellini said that the $12 billion 45 nm investment will yield about $80 billion in revenues over time.
Source: TG Daily
University Uses BitTorrent to Distribute Patches to 6,500 PCs
It would be impossible for anyone to argue that the most common BitTorrent use is piracy, but stories like the one out of INHOLLAND University may result in a different slew of adopters. This university houses over 6,500 desktop computers in ten different locations, and in order to distribute required patches, over twenty different servers were kept for the purpose. Then, the process of actually distributing the patches to all of the computers took around four days.
After much contemplation, the university decided to go with BitTorrent for the task, and they must be sure glad they did – it cut the time from four days to four hours! If that wasn’t great enough, the fact that BitTorrent distributes the files in between clients meant that they were able to cut their server use from two dozen to only two.
It’s uses like this that go to show just how incredible the BitTorrent technology is. For this university, it won’t only be a time-saver, but an energy saver as well, both on the human and electrical side.
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“Let me put it this way: if INHOLLAND wants to migrate to Windows Vista, they only have to send out an image through BT. All 6,500 desktops can be migrated overnight in two hours’ time—with one push of a button. It’s a real migration killer. Migration used to mean a lengthy and trying process. At INHOLLAND, we took a different approach.”
Source: Ars Technica
Ziff Davis Files for Chapter 11
It’s not too often you see a mega-publisher claim bankruptcy, but that’s exactly what Ziff Davis have gone ahead and done. Current Ziff Davis properties include 1UP.com, EGM, Games for Windows: The Official Magazine, FileFront, ExtremeTech, PC Magazine and others.
Claiming chapter 11 doesn’t mean Ziff Davis is in serious trouble, and they are able to turn things around, which they are in the process of doing now. According to papers filed with the US Bankruptcy Court, Ziff Davis currently have a debt of between $500 million and $1 billion. Ouch.
But, not all is doom and gloom. According to a note on the 1UP blog by the VP of Content, things will get far better once they re-emerge from the “other side” of the problem. That’s not exactly a solution for fixing the problem, but I doubt ZD have much to worry about regardless.
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Today’s restructuring agreement goes a long way towards resolving the burdens of a debt load and capital structure established seven years ago, during a leveraged buyout of the company,” Ziff Davis Media Chief Executive Officer Jason Young said in the statement.
Source: Bloomberg
Acer Inches Past Dell In Notebook Sales
Acer has long been a company to sell many notebooks, but their effect on the market lately has been staggering – and since acquiring Gateway, things have only been going up. According to new reports by DisplaySearch, Acer sold 3.11 million notebooks in Q4/06, but had numbers skyrocket to 5.25 million for Q4/07, effectively putting them ahead of Dell.
HP is still the company to beat, however, as they sold 6.66 million units in Q4/07, a full 27% more than Acer. This comes as a personal surprise to me, as I know numerous people who own Acer notebooks, but not one owns HP. Retail distribution is sure to help a lot here.
The market is clearly dominated by these big three, however, as their combined totals equal 50%. Toshiba falls behind Dell by almost half of the units moved, while Lenovo sits in fifth with 2 million units sold. ASUS moved 1.04 million last quarter while Apple sits in the ninth position with 0.969 million units moved… still an impressive figure for a single quarter.
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Acer’s acquisitions of rival PC makers Gateway and Packard Bell enabled it to beat Dell out of the second place spot on the DisplaySearch list. However, DisplaySearch points out that Acer was able to dramatically narrow the gap between it and Dell with Acer branded notebooks alone.
Source: DailyTech
Nine Inch Nails Online Distribution Proves Successful
Even if you are not a fan of Nine Inch Nails, it’s hard not to be impressed by their determination to please their fans and displease the record industry. We posted just the other day that the band has released their latest album via exceptional distribution methods, and the question of whether or not that would be successful is now known.
In just two days, the website sold out of the $300 Limited Edition set, which included the LPs and extra photo book, along with Trent Reznors signature. Doing simple math, that amounts to a staggering $750,000… in just a few days! To say that this has been successful so far is an understatement, and that figure is only from the Limited Edition set – it does not count the regular CD sales or the Deluxe Edition, which is the edition I purchased and am now kicking myself for since I should have gone for the Limited Edition…
Still, this really goes to show just how successful online distribution can be. Granted, NIN is an established band who has a massive following already, so this kind of thing would be a little more difficult for an indie or commercial band. But, as one would expect, where there is great music, there are fans, and ultimately, there will be purchases.
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“I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective – dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”
Source: Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I – IV
Internet Explorer 8 Beta Available to Download
All of you intrepid beta testers will be pleased to know that Internet Explorer 8 is now available to download. It is, however, a beta, so problems can, and will ensue.
To see what was new, I downloaded the browser for my Vista 64-bit system and the installation was an absolute breeze overall. But, it didn’t take long before the browser crashed. The first page that arises will prompt you to download a plugin, and when selecting that option, the browser crashes. So, it’s very clear to me that the browser is not ready for prime-time, just yet.
New in this version are better adherence to web-standards, but you can expect that to break up a few of your favorite websites. You can see in the image below what it did to this site… and our code is rather clean and follows many standard guidelines. Plus, contrary to what we were led to believe, a default installation did not pass the Acid2 test.
If you are an avid user of Internet Explorer, it’s not worth trying out unless you don’t mind performing a system restore shortly after. While you can emulate IE7 within IE8, bugs still occur and are annoying. In all fairness though, many of the nags I experienced might actually be an isolated incident.
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Internet Explorer 8 Users can discover WebSlices within a webpage and add them to the Favorites bar, a dedicated row below the Address bar for easy access to links. Internet Explorer 8 subscribes to the webpage, detects changes in the WebSlice, and notifies the user of updates. Users can preview these updates directly from the Favorites bar and click-through to the website to get more information.
Source: IE8 Beta Download Page
So, Just How Bad Is PC Game Piracy?
We posted the other day regarding some assumptions that PC game piracy could be as high as 85%, but that is one number that will be disputed now, and for some time to come. In an attempt to gather some more reasonable numbers, Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Kieron Gillen hit up Mininova.org to see just how many pirated PC games were being swapped.
The overall numbers are rather staggering. The #1 game being downloaded right now is Assassin’s Creed, which in itself is odd since half of the game is broken (warez version only). Call of Duty 4, the game mentioned in our posting the other day, is in the third position. According to Kieron’s math, if download numbers kept up since that games launch, then close to a million people would have downloaded it… illegally.
Torrents are a hard thing to grab statistics from because so many factors can come into play, but even when the most moderate estimates are taken into consideration, the numbers are still staggering. On one hand, it’s with numbers like these that I can understand why developers employ tools like Punk Buster with their application. On the other, these numbers are HIGH, so what good is Punk Buster doing? Except to annoy legal customers?
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We mentioned that some code of Assassin’s Creed has been leaked before, but it’s worth stressing this is only a preview build. The game crashes upon reaching Jerusalem, which has lead to some hilarious hacker whining, immortalised here. Even when this is known, it hasn’t stopped people downloading the bloody thing. Lost making an appearance is expected, but Dark Messiah showing up is a genuine surprise – in terms of most leechers on a single client, it’s highest.
Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Our Third Birthday Contest Off to a Great Start
Although our contest just launched yesterday, it’s already been going quite well. Sadly, we ran into a few initial issues not originally found in our beta testing of the survey, so it seems many e-mails did not make it to their destination. The most notable were addresses with Hotmail, but some ISP addresses suffered the same fate.
In the end, we had to re-write our e-mail headers, and surprisingly, that seems to have fixed things. Anyone who signed up within the first 18 hours of the contest and didn’t receive an e-mail, should have received it last night. If not, please shoot me an e-mail and I will make sure you get your validation key. That goes for anyone else who signs up from this point forward as well, but I am quite sure there will be no more instances of this. If you don’t receive an e-mail, please remember to check your spam/junk folders.
For those unaware, we are giving out a full gaming computer (valued at $4,500) to one lucky person who fills out our quick twenty-question survey. If you haven’t participated yet, please check out our contest page and get on it! It could wind up being the best three-minutes you’ve ever spent, plus, it helps us out in the process!
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In order to help better the site, we have set up a survey that asks straight-forward questions. We want to know what we are doing right, wrong and what we could do to improve, all while making sure that we are catering to types of content and other things that many of you want. This twenty-question survey should take no more than three minutes for most, and by filling it out, you will be helping us a lot.
Source: Techgage 2008 Birthday Contest
Samsung Ships Two Kick-Ass Mobile Drives At Once
Sure, we all know that being mobile is fantastic, but not so fantastic is the limited storage space we are left to deal with. Or, if we do have a lot of space, it tends to be slow. Well, Samsung takes care of both of these problems at the same time.
First and foremost, the 2.5-inch 500GB drive is drool-worthy in every regard. Hitachi first released a 500GB offering in early January, but the problem was it’s larger physical size. It was unable to fit in 100% of SATA-capable notebooks out there, an obvious problem. This Samsung drive suffers no such flaw. Though the rated RPM is a somewhat slower 5400, the drive is still top-of-the-class all around. It will cost $299 once available.
If speed is your bag, then Samsung’s own 250GB takes care of you. It not only offers a whack of hard drive space, it does so while still delivering fast 7200RPM speeds and a super-large 16MB cache. Pricing is unavailable… but hopefully they prove reasonable enough to be outfitted in gaming and multi-media notebooks all over. It’s going to be one sweet offering.
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The disk also eliminates many of the bottlenecks that affect any notebook drive with an extra-large 16MB cache and a Serial ATA II connection for added headroom during burst transfers. Samsung also implements quiet seeking technology and noise isolation that renders the drive quiet compared to past hard drives.
Source: Electronista
Gary Gygax RIP
If you’re one of the millions of people who hunched over a poorly drawn map at three in the morning, you were (hopefully) playing Dungeons and Dragons. Gary Gygax is the reason we’re all hooked on role playing games, whether it be online MMOs or the good old pencil and paper versions. You’ll be missed, Gary.
Gary Gygax, a pioneer of the imagination who transported a fantasy realm of wizards, goblins and elves onto millions of kitchen tables around the world through the game he helped create, Dungeons & Dragons, died Tuesday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis. He was 69.
Source: NYTimes
Intel’s P45 and G45 Chipets Laced All Over CeBit
Up to now, and even including now, Intel has been mum on the P35 and G35 successors, but as Anand points out, equipped motherboards are found all over the many CeBit halls.
The G35 will prove interesting for those with mini-PCs or HTPC’s, as the chipset includes support for H.264 decode acceleration, something not found in G35. The smaller brother to the G45, G43, will not include this support. Also maimed is the memory support, as the G43 will only allow 1 DIMM per channel, compared to 2 on the G45.
The P35 chipset that Intel launched last spring quickly became the ultimate choice for enthusiasts, whether on a budget or not. It’s safe to say that P45 will continue along with it’s tradition of offering great performance at a reasonable price. Like the previous generation, however, P45 still offers support for up to 1333FSB, no doubt leaving the 1600FSB spec up to X48. As we found with P35 though, hitting that mark is a simple task on almost all motherboards.
Another interesting feature? These new chipsets are based on a 65nm process, compared to 90nm for the previous generation. Though P35 and the rest ran cool, you can likely expect P45 and its siblings to run even cooler and offer better power efficiency. The launch of these new chipsets should happen sometime next quarter.
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The chipsets are P45, G45, G43, and X48. The G45 chipset includes the new Intel GMA X4500 HD graphics core which adds support for H.264 decode acceleration, something that has been absent from all previous Intel integrated graphics solutions. Hardware H.264 decode acceleration is not included in G43 (the G43 only uses the X4500 GPU, without the HD suffix).
Source: AnandTech
Dell Releases Extremely Durable Latitude XFR D630
Is the Apple AIR a little too lightweight for your liking? Then you might need Dell’s new Latitude XFR D630, which should simply be called the ‘Tude XFR D630, because it has a lot of it. The D630 is more than just a tough notebook… it’s designed to be military-grade, so you know it can take a beating.
Because it includes Windows Vista, chances are the notebook is bound to get beat around a little bit, and at the same time, Dell claims 23% improved performance over Panasonic’s Toughbook CF-30. Thanks to its solid-die-cast magnesium alloy chassis, it’s one extremely tough machine.
Prices start out high, as expected, at $3,899. That includes a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7250, Windows XP, 14.1 outdoor-viewable display, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB shock-mounted hard drive. Considering these somewhat lackluster specs, it’s obvious that the chassis is what hogs the bulk of the price. To upgrade to a faster and even more stable solid-state hard drive, it will cost you $210 for the 32GB version or $509 for the 64GB. Certainly pricey, it will no doubt serve its purpose well.
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The Latitude XFR D630 meets MIL-STD 810F standards from the Department of Defense for products that operate in extreme temperatures, moisture and altitude, to name a few. The system shares common images and components with Dell’s current line of Latitude laptops to greatly simplify deployment and maintenance. Also, a patent-pending thermal management system allows the rugged laptop to use latest generation technology and deliver up to four times better graphics performance than the Panasonic CF-30.
Source: Dell Press Release, Via: CrouchGear
AMD Close to Releasing Catalyst 8.3 Drivers
We posted late last week about AMD’s latest Catalyst 8.3 drivers, and without time to even catch our breath, AMD are now prepared to release them to the public. Kind of. The press release states that the drivers would be available March 4, but at the time of this post, they are still missing. The reason for the delay is unclear, but we should see them soon.
In addition to opening up DX10.1 support, Super Anti-Aliasing modes, HydraVision support and better GPU monitor-scaling, the driver also delivers support for CrossFireX, making support for three and four GPUs entirely possible. The performance is still unknown for Quad-GPU, such as dual HD 3870 X2’s, but I am sure it won’t be long before we find out. I have a great feeling these first drivers will not deliver superb performance, but I’d like to be proven wrong. Dual 3870 X2’s would be very nice in Crysis…
Update: The driver is now live!
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Through three- and four-GPU configurations in CrossFireX, gamers can see multi-GPU performance scaling across a range of today’s most popular DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 games on Windows Vista — up to 3.2 times the performance over a single GPU2 in some scenarios. The flexible architecture of CrossFireX allows for the mixing and matching of high-performing ATI Radeon GPUs. Any ATI Radeon HD 3850, ATI Radeon HD 3870 or ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards can be combined to harness the power of up to four GPUs. CrossFireX also supports a wide range of platforms, enabling many gamers to take advantage of three- and four-GPU gaming on their existing hardware.
Source: AMD Press Release, Via: Engadget
Hacking a Windows Password Via FireWire
Hacking a Windows password can be difficult if not equipped with proper SAM cracker or brute force application, but how about a hardware-based solution? According to a new article published by The Age, there has been an exploit lingering in Windows XP for a few years that is susceptible to having the password cracked – by, get this – via a FireWire connection.
Now, without getting into the irony that an Apple-invented product can be used to crack a Windows password, this is an interesting exploit. Because of the way FireWire handles read/writes to the computer RAM, connecting another PC to it (non-Windows) via FireWire opens up the ability to access that RAM, and in turn becoming able to circumvent the password protection code, deeming it useless.
The foolish thing is that this exploit has been known for a few years, it’s just that Microsoft has decided it was not important enough to fix. So after years of it sitting on his lap, Adam Boileau, the hacker rocker in the picture below, created a tool to help people exploit it. All that’s needed is a Unix-derived OS and it should work no problem. You can learn a lot more about the exploit and the tool at Adam’s web site.
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Paul Ducklin, head of technology for security firm Sophos, said the security hole found by Boileau was not a vulnerability or bug in the traditional sense, because the ability to use the Firewire port to access a computer’s memory was actually a feature of Firewire. “If you have a Firewire port, disable it when you aren’t using it,” Ducklin said.
Source: The Age