Pre-E3 Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 05:19 PM CEST - May,13 2003
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- E3: No Xbox price cut, no redesign, but lotsa games on show -
Rumours of a price cut and a hardware redesign failed to materialise at
Microsoft's Xbox conference in Los Angeles on Monday night, with the company
focusing attention instead on its forthcoming software line-up.
- E3: Xbox sings a new tune - Microsoft announced
the first nongame application for its Xbox video game console Monday and
touted a handful of high-profile games intended to boost the system's cachet
among hardcore players. The unveiling of the Xbox Music Mixer was the most
striking announcement at the company's press conference held in advance of the
E3 trade show here. The $40 package, set to go on sale this fall, will include
PC and Xbox software that will allow owners to transfer digital music and
photos from their computer to the console's hard drive.
- LG.Philips LCD interview, part 2 - DigiTimes has posted
the second part of an interview conducted on March 18, 2003 at the
headquarters of LG.Philips LCD in Seoul, Korea.
- Office 2003 Adds SMS - A Swedish mobile messaging company's
software will be offered for integration into Microsoft Office 2003, allowing
users to
send SMS (Short Message Service) messages from Microsoft Outlook.
- Intel reveals Itanium 2 glitch - Intel disclosed an electrical
problem Monday that can cause computers using its flagship Itanium 2 processor
to behave erratically or crash. Customers can sidestep
the
problem by setting the processor to run at a lower speed, said company
spokeswoman Barbara Grimes, and Intel will replace the processor if customers
want. The glitch affects only some chips, and then only in the case of "a
specific set of operations in a specific sequence with specific data," Grimes
said.
- 875P chip set offers an 800-MHz bus but little performance boost, for
now -
Intel's new 875P chip set provides Pentium 4 PCs with an 800-MHz frontside
bus and dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM memory--but we saw little performance gain
over an older chip set in our lab tests of three of the first new systems,
except in a few very demanding applications like AutoCAD. Previously, high-end
P4 systems used a 533-MHz frontside bus and RDRAM memory. Note that Intel has
also released a 3-GHz P4 to match the new bus.
- Darpa takes on optical interconnects challenges - The Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency is
overseeing development of optical interconnects that will be able to
achieve 1,000 times the speed per power and volume of electronic
interconnects. High-end supercomputing clusters linked by high-speed networks
are already in the 10-teraflops range and supercomputer makers have petaflops
designs under development. But what Darpa needs is a teraflops computer in a
small, rugged form factor that can be inserted into a variety of military
equipment.
- AMD introduces Athlon XP Processor 3200+ -
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
on May 13 introduced its 2.2GHz Athlon XP processor 3200+, the first in
the series to feature a 400MHz FSB (front-side bus). The company claims the
processor boasts a 6% performance advantage over "its closest competitor" on a
variety of industry-standard software benchmarks.In over 1,000-unit quantities
the CPU will cost $464. (Prices for 3000+ and below models were cut on May 6).
AMD already launched shipments of its Athlon XP 3200+ along with North
American and European system builders offering their products. We await more
info to arrive throughout the day, so stay tuned. Another articles can be
found at
CNET and
AMDBoard.
- VIA pledges support for AMD's 400MHz FSB - VIA has said today that
its upcoming
Apollo KT600 and UniChrome KM400A chipsets will support the AMD Athlon XP
3200+'s 400MHz frontside bus. The KT600 supports 400MHz DDR SDRAM,
matching the FSB's 3.2GBps throughput. It also supports AGP 8x. When supplied
with VIA's VT8237 South Bridge, the chipset provides up to eight USB 2.0
ports, dual-channel Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 and 0+1, and support for up to
four ATA-133 devices. Six-channel audio, 10/100Mbps Ethernet and a 56Kbps
modem are built in too.
- AMD Athlon XP3200+ review - The interesting thing for me with
this processor launch is that it indicates
the
performance level of 2 pretty much unrelated AMD setups that aren't XP3200+.
Firstly, the advent of lower clocked Athlon XP's with the overclocking
headroom to get right up here means that XP3200+ at 2.2GHz (11 x 200) on a
200MHz front side bus means you can tell where your freshly bought XP1700+
JUIHB is going to be at 11.5 x 200 (mind that extra cache remember). 2.3GHz is
a not unreasonable clock to obtain these days. AMD wont like me for saying
that very much but even they'll admit that the low end demand makes more bank
for them than these high end models, even if margins are better up here in the
performance clouds. Another reviews can be fount at
GamersDepot,
THG,
HotHardware, X-bit
labs,
Amdmb.com,
Sudhian
Media,
AMDWorld,
The Tech Report,
UK
Gamer, and
LostCircuits.
- NVidia's 5900 FX Chip Tests -
PC World tests found notable performance differences in games only at
higher resolutions. At 1280 by 1024, the 5900 FX Ultra boosted games like
Serious Sam 2 and Unreal Tournament 2002 (UT) by just 3 to 5 frames per second
over a 5800FX Ultra-based card. Only at 1600 by 1200 does the 5900 pull
noticeably ahead of the 5800, though still by 11 to 14 frames per second. (We
tested the FX 5900 card with an early version of the driver.)
- nVidia Takes On ATI-Again -
PC Magazine Labs tested the nVidia GeForceFX 5900 Ultra against the ATI
Radeon 9800 Pro.
- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) Overclocking - The maximum
frequencies when the card still worked stably
equaled 490MHz for the core and 900MHz (450MHz DDR) for the memory.
Compared with the nominal frequencies in 3D mode - 450MHz/850MHz (425MHz DDR),
this result is more than modest: the frequency grew up by only 8.9% for the
graphics core and 5.9% for the graphics memory.
- GeForceFX 5900 Ultra / Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB -
One
article, two new video cards. NVIDIA's GeForceFX 5900 Ultra. ATI's Radeon
9800 Pro 256MB. Head to head IQ and Performance!
- Intel 3.06Ghz Pentium 4 CPU Review - With a brand new chipset,
no doubt that this new CPU has shown its power rvrn in the lack of an
appropriate version of Windows Application Accellerator. Even if all the users
will not chose to set a RAID 0 array on their system, this CPU will continue
to offer impressive performances on all activities not heavily relying on disk
usage. Having already demonstrated brilliant performances during our
test of the former 3.06Ghz P4, thie new edition of this CPU continues to
impress et will sure not deceive all it future buyers.
- P4 2.4B-2.4C with 865PE-875P vs AXP 2500+ with nForce2 - There you
have it. For the time being, Intel's simply got AMD on the ropes. The 865PE is
cool,
but 875P paired with an 800 FSB proc is phenomenal. This new chipset just
feels like something bigger and better, and it is. AMD's game is it's
bargain...in fact, if one were to go AMD with the thought of overclocking, I'd
tell 'em to just grab one of their $50 Thoroughbreds, and go to town. That's
AMD's clear advantage...but unfortunately, it's also really hurting their
bottom line as a company. So outside of the cost advantage of low-end
Athlon overclocking, it's all 875P and the 800 FSB Pentium 4's.
- Logitech MX-500 Review - Logitech claims that this
MX optical engine is the best in the industry, and I have to agree - the
MX-500 is smooth and precise. It is much more sensitive than the Explorer,
which allows you to hit a smaller target much more quickly in your games, or
highlight much better in Photoshop. Not to say that the Explorer isn't good
optical mouse, it is much better than many of the optical mice I have used and
blows away any ball mouse.
- MadLights Case Lighting -
The MadLights unit is without a doubt the coolest pre-packaged case
lighting product on the market right now. With 16 programs available in 5
speed settings each, nothing else even comes close. Installation was solid
without compromising your ability to remove the unit at your leisure. The long
ribbon cables with two banks of lights each make it easy to create effects at
will. The construction quality likewise seemed top rate. The only downside to
the MadLights unit was the price. $59 seems a bit steep.
- Chieftec Matrix Series Pc Case Review - Ascully takes
a look at the Matrix series of cases, in particular, the MTX-C Midi Tower
with clear side panel. Neo and Trinity would be proud.
- Modding the Barton XP to a Barton MP -
There you have it, the Barton XP can indeed be modded to run in a dual
processor board. As we've mentioned, it's only possible with certain
motherboards and BIOS revisions. Since we did not have the luxury to test
every single AMD 760MPX motherboards for compatibility, we can only verify at
this point of time that the MSI K7D Master is possibly the only verified
candidate for this modding.
- VR-Zone's OC Databases Updated -
P4
"Northwood" Overclocking ~
Athlon XP
"Thoroughbred" Overclocking ~
Athlon XP
"Barton" Overclocking
- The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide Revision 7.7 - Adrian's
Rojak Pot just let us know he has posted
the new REVISION
7.7 BIOS OPTIMIZATION GUIDE with six new BIOS options. Covering a total of
196 BIOS options, this is the most comprehensive guide to BIOS tweaking...
until the next revision, that is. :) Here is the list of new or updated BIOS
options : 32-bit Transfer Mode, CPU VCore Voltage, DRAM Ratio (CPU:DRAM), DRAM
Ratio H/W Strap, No Mask of SBA FE and Synchronous Mode Select.
- Budget Buyers Guide - Budget Buyers GuideRipnet has posted a
Budget Buyers Guide (UK).
- GeForce FX 5900 Ultra Demos & Videos - Oh yeah -
check
out this page!
- Zoom Player 3.1 Beta 1 -
Zoom Player (download
~
changelog) provides special zooming functions to improve TV-Output quality
by eliminating overscan. Zoom Player's scaling system allows you to exactly
match the video area to your screen's dimensions in real-time with adjustable
background color in order to test for brightness bleeds.
- Codename: Dashboard 1.1 Beta 11 -
Dashboard is an application that resides at the side of your screen,
similar to the "Sidebar" component shown in the Longhorn video.
- TVTool 7.1 Beta - A new beta version of
TV Tool (download)
has been released. This is the program that enables your video card TV-Output
and seems to be the best external one.
- BootXP 2.50 RC1 - A new version of
BootXP is
out. This new version features full compatibility with Service Pack 2 NTOSKRNL
(Version 2.1.2600.1150).
- YahooPOPs! 0.4.5 -
YahooPOPs! (download)
is an open-source initiative to provide free POP3 access to your Yahoo! Mail
- WinZip 9.0 beta build 5480 -
WinZip (what's
new in Winzip 9.0) features built-in support CAB files and for popular
Internet file formats such as TAR, gzip, UUencode, BinHex, and MIME. ARJ, LZH,
and ARC files are supported via external programs. Improvements in WinZip 9.0
concentrate on its core functionality: compression, capacity, and a new,
advanced data encryption capability. Using WinZip 9.0, you can compress more
data, compress it better, and protect your sensitive documents with far
greater security.
- K-Lite Codec Pack 2.03 Final -
The K-Lite
Codec Pack contains everything you need to be able to playback the most
popular audio and video formats. The basic version contains all the codecs
that are needed for playing most movies that can be downloaded from the
Internet. The full version has some extra codecs which are used less often and
includes a media player. It is strongly recommended to uninstall older
versions prior to installing; this is to keep your system clean and tidy and
to avoid any possible conflicts.
- Nvidia Detonator v44.03 Win2k/XP BETA -NvMax offers
a new beta
detonators for your download and testing pleasure. This driver
supports the upcoming NV35 card. Files within the archive are dated May 11,
2003.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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