- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
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Hitachi Gathers Resources to Double 2005 Output of Consumer Electronic Hard Drives
“Hitachi’s strength in CE hard drives is now validated with IDC’s recent findings and provides a strong basis from which to accelerate our CE business in 2005,” said Bill Healy, senior vice president, product strategy and marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “Hitachi’s intensified focus in the CE segment hard drive will mean good news for end-users as we work on developing smaller, high-capacity hard drives that are more rugged, require less power and cost less.”
Go
here to read the full article.
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor Review @ AMD Gamer
“In this review I will cover the Athlon 64 FX-55, AMD’s top of the line CPU. Socket 939 processors are 64 bit compatible ready for Microsoft’s next generation OS – Windows XP 64-bit. I will take a close look at this CPU, the included cooling solution, run some tests and post some hopefully interesting results. Since 64 bit applications and drivers are not final or widely available, I will test 32 bit performance in Windows XP Pro.”
What a dream CPU.. They have benchmarks available comparing this chip to the other high end FX chips, as well as a high end P4 CPU. Check out the full review at AMD Gamer.
ASUS’s A8N-SLI Deluxe vs DFI’s LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D @ Hexus
“The A8N-SLI has had a recent BIOS revision that does a lot to solve its initial problems, tightening up stability especially when actually using SLI, and being ASUS, it’s got more built-in and bundled features than I’ve had hot dinners..
Its nemesis for this article is DFI’s LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D. DFI have their SLI board in a trio of configurations from the bundle-heavy nF4 SLI-DR, complete with Front-X ports, carry strap and diagnostic LED system on the mainboard, to the lite LanLartyUT SLI-D, which is the DR without the extra Silicon Image Sil3114 controller.”
Check out the versus challenge over at Hexus.
Go With ATI and Win
ATI has just launched a new contest, entitled “Go with ATI and Win”. In order to enter the contest, you need to purchase a complete system through an authorized dealer, that includes a PCI-E ATI graphics card. The purchase also needs to take place between March 1 – April 24, 2005.
Since those rules are nuts, there is another option. To enter this contest without purchase, you may submit a short succinct statement about “ Why I Want an ATI RADEON® PCI Express Graphics Card“
Check out the full rules and contest page over at the official ATI website.
Vanguard Saga: New Vanguard Lore, Morgan’s Tale Part 22
The continuing Vanguard Saga of Heroes lore, Morgan’s Tale, has a new installment, Shades of Gray, which continues the exploits of the ranger Morgan and his companions. A fantastic tidbit for hungry Vanguard fans to chew on, and just adds to the anticipation this game is creating.
Firefox Growth rate Slows
New research shows the growth rate of open-source browser Firefox is slowing, while Microsoft’s browser market share continues to dip. The browser’s market share, which has increased rapidly overall, has begun to grow at a slower pace in the past month. During the five-week period leading up to Feb. 18, Firefox had a 15 percent growth rate, compared with a 34 percent increase within the same time frame after its debut, according to the study.
Visit CNET News here to read more about this study.
ATI Extends its Line of High-end Graphics Cards
RADEON® X800 XL and RADEON® X850 XT now available for AGP customers
ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX:ATY)(NASDAQ:ATYT) today enhanced its family of graphics products for gamers and enthusiast PC users by announcing and shipping AGP versions of its popular RADEON® X800 XL graphics cards and RADEON® X850 XT graphics processors.
So if you are like me, and haven’t upgraded to PCI-E yet, here’s your chance to use the top end PCI-E cards in your AGP slot. Check out the full PR here.
High-Performance Power Supply Units @ Toms Hardware
“We are particularly concerned with efficiency values, an aspect that is frequently overlooked. The more efficient the power supply is, the less energy is converted to heat inside the unit. Less heat means the fans inside the unit spin more slowly while kicking out the same level of power, which translates into significantly less noise. Less heat also means that the components of the supply are under less strain, thus boosting the life of the power supply as well as that of the other components installed inside the computer.”
They have put 21 PSU’s against each other. The Benchmarking results are impressive. There is definately a noticeable difference between some, so definately check out this article before your next PSU purchase.
nForce4 SLI Roundup @ AnandTech
AnandTech has posted a comparison of four top notch SLi motherboards.
“Even if you don’t care at all about SLI, you should look carefully at these motherboard features and test results because the only real difference in nForce4 SLI and Ultra boards is in some of the most recent games and a few synthetic benchmarks. Running one video card, the SLI and Ultra boards from the same manufacturer should provide the same results – and we have posted single video card results in all benchmarks for comparison.”
Check out the full comparison at AnandTech. It’s alengthy article, so be sure your coffee up is full :)
HIS x850XT IceQ II @ T-Break
HIS has been pumping out great graphics cards for awhile now, and this ones apparently no exception. T-break has a review on their 850XT IceQ II series.
“We recently looked at HIS’ x700 pro based card and were impressed by its looks and performance. While the x700 PRO is more of a mainstream card, today we have their very high-end x850XT. Like their x700 PRO, the x850 is cooled by their iceQ technology although it’s a newer version.”
Check out the full review at T-break.
Kingwin KWVC-3 Video Card Cooling System @ ClubOC
“Once in a while you’ll come across a video card that runs so hot, that the OEM graphics accelerator cooling system just can’t keep up when gaming for hours on end. Some OEM cooling systems are of cheap design and burn out only after a few months of use. They there are times that your video card cost you nearly a month’s pay and you just want extra cooling to prolong it’s life. Whatever your needs may be, Kingwin has the solution; the KWVC-3 video card cooling system.”
Check out the full review at ClubOC.
Demon 480w Power Supply @ Controlled Insanity
“Taking a quick look around the pc hardware market, more specifically power supplies, you don’t see a lot of hype and advertising for the mid range power supplies. The talk is always about the bigger, stronger products, geared towards pushing your system to the edge and beyond. Well what about those people who don’t need to overclock, and are simply satisfied with what will get them by? In steps our next product for review, sent over by a relatively unknown, but uniquely designed and well stocked company, ATXPowerSupplies.”
Tru dat. Check out the full review at Controlled Insanity.
Mac Pioneer Jef Raskin Dies at 61
Jef Raskin, the computer interface expert who launched the Macintosh project for Apple Computer, died Saturday at age 61.
“Raskin, who named the Macintosh after his favorite fruit, joined Apple in January 1978 as employee No. 31. The Macintosh was launched in 1984, but Raskin left Apple in 1982 amid a well-documented dispute with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.”
Check out the small biography of him at News.com.
Shuttle SB95P V2 @ [H]ardOCP
As small form factor PC’s are becoming more common, companies like Shuttle aim to design a system that can pack a ton of power, into a small box. HardOCP is taking a look at the SB95P V2 which is based on the i925XE chipset.
“The system uses the Intel i925XE chipset, boasting support for all LGA775-based processors including the latest 1066MHz FSB models, DDR2 RAM modules operating in Dual Channel modes up to speeds of 533MHz officially, and PCI Express x16 type video cards. The SB95P V2 is a small form factor solution, which means that you need an LGA775 CPU, DDR2 memory, and a PCI Express x16 video card for a complete system.”
Sounds like the beginning of a great lan party PC right there. Check out the full review over at [H]ardOCP.
Music download sites prices likely to rise
According to The Register, downloadable music tracks prices may be going up.
“Several big labels are in talks with online music retailers to get them to increase prices,according to the FT. The labels are looking to increase the wholesale prices shops pay for tracks. Sites in the US typically sell tracks for 99 cents each. The wholesale price is currently 65 cents per track, according to the FT.”
If they jack the price per track by even $0.10, then that is another $1.00 or more per full album. The price rise could even be larger than that though. It’s noted in the article a possibility of allowing music companies to charge variably per track.. more popular the track, the more it would cost. Check out the article at The Register.
Opera beefs up browser to thwart phishers
“Opera is trying to close the net on phishers with the release last Friday (February 25) of a second beta of its forthcoming Opera 8 browser. The Beta 2 release is designed to display the name of an organisation that owns the certificate of a site inside an address bar, located next to the padlock icon that indicates the security of a site. By clicking on the bar, surfers can find out who issued a certificate.”
This is great news if you are a Opera user. Read the full details and explanations over at The Register.
512MB GeForce 6800 Ultra Card @ Bit-Tech
Bit-Tech has released some pictures of a new 512MB 6800 Ultra card from Nvidia. Hardcore for sure.. and set to match wits of the ATI X850XT 512MB.
“It appears that the video card is not just a Gainward-only technology – from the looks of the pictures it seems to be an NVIDIA reference board, however this is just our speculation. It is also worth noting that there is a new power layout at the end of the board, much different to previous versions of the GeForce 6800 series on both AGP and PCI-Express.”
Check out the post on the Bit-Tech Forums. Can’t wait to see some benchmarks on these 512 cards.
Comparing Pentium4 & Athlon64 x64 Performance @ T-Break
Now that Intel finally released a 64-Bit processor, T-Break took advantage of the situation to do some hardcore benchmarking. Now the question can be answered to go Intel 64, or stay at AMD 64.
“While AMD’s CPUs have had 64-bit support for quite some time, Intel just introduced them for their desktop PCs this week. Microsoft is slowly but surely working towards the 64-bit version of Windows XP which is currently in RC2 state meaning it is almost done. Now the Athlon64 has been benchmarked on the 64-bit XP quite a few times but we’re sure that lots of people are interested in finding out Intel’s performance.”
Check out the full article at T-Break.
Bank of America Data Tapes Lost
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bank of America Corp. has lost computer data tapes containing personal information on 1.2 million federal employees, including some members of the U.S. Senate.
That’s a lot of records to lose. Hey, at least they apologized. Check out the news posting at Foxnews.com.
MSI MEGA View 561 Review @ Viper Lair
“One of the benefits of the MEGA View 561 is that it is multipurpose. While it’s larger than the iPod, it’s smaller than portable DVD players. Add to the fact that you can pile on quite a few movies on the 20GB drive, you save the additional hassle of packing extra DVDs.”
Check out the full review at Viper Lair.
DNA 3.7.5.2 Drivers Released
A brand new set of DNA drivers for ATI cards have been released today.
* Based on the Official CATALYST 5.2 Release
* Updated DNA-ATi Theme Changer to V1.2
* Fixed ATi Tray Tools version number typo
* Updated modded driver deletion for:
– ATI Optimized Driver by TechConnect Magazine v2.0, 1.9 and 1.8
* Added special eXtreme Players DNA-ATi Theme
* Control Panel LOGO’s made by Cen0xâ„¢ this release
* Readded the special CounterStrike OpenGL driver
Also released it a “Lite” version of the driver set. If you want to check out the new version, you can download it over at the DNA Drivers site.
X-Raypad Review @ Techware Labs
And yet another way to ad grip to your mouse handling, Techware Labs has reviewed three X-Raypad mousepads.
“With in insurgence of optical mice on the maket and even the latest release of laser enabled mice, are mouse pads really necessary? This reviewer thought so until thegamercompany.com sent TWL a few items from XRaypad.com to try out. The items included the Thunder8, Thunder9 and the Aqua3 mouse pads.”
Check out the full review at Techware Labs.
Steelpad Steelgrips @ Monster-Hardware
Ever play a late night CS: Source session, and suck? Then you tear your mouse out of your computer, and throw it in the garbage? “Damn those lack of grips!”. Monster-Hardware has reviewed the new Steelpad Steelgrip, which allow you to stick some grips on your mouse, to give you better control. Unique idea, for sure.
Check out the full review at Monster-Hardware.
WoW: Blizzard adds new Fan Art
Blizzard has added Five new pieces of Fan Art to that section. These are incredible pieces of art.. so definately check them out at the Official Fan Art Page.
ATI Invites Gamers to Tweak Their PCs With the PROs and Get a Sneak Peek at the World’s First 512MB
MARKHAM, Ontario–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb. 23, 2005– Gamers from around the world are invited to join ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX:ATY)(NASDAQ:ATYT) and its marketing partners at the Ultimate LAN, held in association with the Texas Gaming Festival in Dallas, February 25th to 27th. In addition to offering gamers three days of top-notch gaming, the event will include an overclocking demonstration and a PC modding event. Attendees will get the opportunity to preview the world’s first 512MB gaming card and one lucky gamer will even get to take one home.
Another geeks dream card! This is the first card that has an available 512MB of RAM, and it makes us wonder if Nvidia has something similar in the works. As we know, Doom III’s “Ultra Quality” option recommends a card with 512MB of RAM, so it would be interesting to see new benchmarks on that setting with this card.
ATI at the event is allowing people to test out the card, and to even Overclock it.. even to the extent of attempting to break world records. The results are going to be much anticipated, to say the least. Check out Tom’s Hardware Guide for more info on the card and event.