News archives from February, 2004

In its biggest strategic mistake in a decade, Intel has spent an estimated $2 billion creating a high-speed computer chip, the Itanium, that most customers don''t want and don''t need.

Once intended to help the Santa Clara chip giant extend its dominance from personal computers to corporate computing, the Itanium has been such a flop that many industry insiders call it the ``Itanic.''''

The decision to move to this new process underscores our long-standing relationship between TSMC and NVIDIA, stated Di Ma, vice president of operations at NVIDIA. "This new manufacturing technology, along with numerous architectural enhancements, enables us to continue delivering products that allow end users to interact with a wide variety of digital devices. We look forward to the new opportunities this advancement will allow us.

"TSMC is committed to innovative collaboration with forward-looking companies such as NVIDIA," said Kenneth Kin, senior vice president of worldwide marketing and sales for TSMC. "Through these relationships, we can deliver technology platforms that create new opportunities for our customers."

Aerocool is still fairly new to the thermal solution market (established in 2002), but has been making pretty big ripples with their stellar new products. Their cooling solutions are marketed for both the industrial and personal computer market. Since their opening they have brought to the already big cooling market some very unique products and technology. Their products go through rigorous testing and are produced by their staff that specializes in airflow analysis, material conductivity, heat transfer, and efficiency design.

Hercules Computer Technology has been a legendary name in computer world because of the popularity achieved by the original Hercules graphics cards in the early eighties. The company itself was acquired by Guillemot in 2000, who continued to sell some astonishing graphics products under Hercules brand-name. Well, sometimes the legends have to go Guillemot said that it would no longer sell LCD monitors as well as graphics cards.

OCZ Technology group unveiled its first products based on recently announced Ultra Low Noise 2 print-circuit boards. Unlike assumed initially, the first memory modules on ULN 2 are not extreme devices, but those, which are capable of handling moderate overclocking.

"THOSE OF YOU WHO REGULARLY PERUSE the news here at TR probably saw the item about the Athlon XP-M 2500+ and its recently discovered overclocking potential. The chips have become so popular so quickly that their street price has jumped 33% in recent days. Of course, given the accounts of overclocking to 2700MHz "on air" (using only a heatsink/fan) it''s no wonder they''re so popular.

Needless to say, we couldn''t sit this one out, so last week we ordered up an Athlon XP-M 2500+, and have spent the last 24 hours or so putting it through its paces. Read on to find out more about this overclocking wonder, and see how our particular chip fared."

"Microsoft Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices announced on Wednesday, the 25th of February, 2004, that the Service Pack 2 update for Microsoft Windows XP operating system will enable AMD s Enhanced Virus Protection technology available in AMD64 microprocessors."

"The world s third largest maker of chipsets for personal computers Silicon Integrated Systems today unveiled its yet another South Bridge with support for PCI Express x1 lanes. Following its competitors, SiS also added Gigabit Ethernet support into its new product."

"The first month of the new year 2004 has passed. Let s find out what we can expect in the remaining winter time and what effect will the events have on the processor, mainboard, video, storage and other markets in the nearest future. Learn more about the latest hardware news and see the future!"

"Today we will introduce to you a new Shuttle cubic system based on an ATI chipset, which boasts the today s fastest graphics. Besides, the new barebone system features a SerialATA RAID controller and an integrated card-reader. All in all it is going to be a very interesting solution for hardware enthusiasts."

"Advanced Micro Devices also has an event in San Francisco, California, these days, to demonstrate some of its innovations. One of the paramount technologies showcased during the show is the Athlon 64 FX-53 processor delivering 30% additional performance in 64-bit mode in Far Cry game."

"Soltek is among the first manufacturers to release an enthusiast-oriented motherboard based on VIA''s new PT880, and I''ve managed to snag the SL-PT880Pro-FGR for testing. With Gigabit Ethernet, Serial and "parallel" ATA RAID, Firewire, and six-channel audio, the SL-PT880Pro packs a lot of functionality for a sub-$100 motherboard, but does it have the performance to run with more expensive Intel-based competition? Read on to find out."

"I listened to music and played games for many hours to put them to the test. After playing Desert Combat for about an hour with my old headphones, I switched to the Theatre 6 headphones. The difference between the old headphones I was using and the Zalman set is like night and day! The speakers create low frequency effects very nicely, especially in Desert Combat. With music, they did perform well, but there was not as much of a noticeable difference as with games. This is because games take advantage of the 5.1 channel capabilities of the headphones, while music is only two channel stereo (left and right), which does not use the true potential of the Theatre 6 headphones."

Today we are going to take a closer look at such an interesting device as TV-tuner. There is the whole bunch of these solutions in the market today, but we will discuss 6 of them to figure out the major peculiarities and functions of these devices and point out the most important things you should pay attention to when buying a TV-tuner for your system.

Chaintech introduced a new concept of a small home PC: a home desktop system with a notebook design. Today we are going to find out if this idea has been put into life successfully and will introduce to you the first representative of the IMO-Desk family for Pentium 4 processors designed on SiS651 chipset. Please meet the solution, which is claimed to be "the Smallest Desktop in the World"!

"This project came about because of what I consider to be exorbitant prices for the premium mouse mats on the market at the moment. They are just a piece of plastic, they should cost virtually nothing.

So I found something WAY better. "

"Graphics processor giant NVIDIA and PalmSource, a developer of software for handhelds, announced co-work plans. The move may enhance graphics acceleration in Palm Powered mobile devices running Palm OS as well as NVIDIA s product portfolio."

"Samsung Electronics announced mass production of the industry s highest speed monolithic memory device, a Graphics Double Data Rate 3 (GDDR3) capable of achieving clock speeds of up to 800MHz."

"Intel Corporation confirmed its intention to redesign the core of the latest Pentium 4 processors made at 90nm nodes. The company s clients will receive the improved versions of Intel s code-named Prescott chips in late February, the company said."

"The decals are high quality, easy to install and DecalHappy includes a squegee and very good and easy to understand instructions."

"Maddots are teflon coated circuler objects that you put over your exisiting mouse feet to increase the smoothness of your mouse on any surface."

"The FrontX takes all the ports such as sound, USB and video and moves them to the front of your case all onto a single device that fits into your 5 1/2" drive bay."

"The Silverstone Eudemon is a 5.25 bay device that is full of functionality. It is the central hub of any computer that it resides in, reading temperatures and adjusting fans speeds accordingly. The main draw of the Eudemon is that after it is configured, it needs no other adjusting."

"Today we review Gigabyte''s flagship VIA K8T800 based Athlon64 motherboard: The K8VNXP. This is a ''limited edition'' board with a ton of onboard goodies, and even more to be found in the box! The K8VNXP has to be one of the most COMPLETE motherboards we''ve come across in a while."

"Finding a computer chassis that is both reasonably priced and attractive can be challenging. Consumers have to often balance between function, case design and price in order to find a case that will fit their personal needs. We have seen a wide range of budget cases here at MTB, each offering something different as far as design options and features. Our friends at Tradex Information Technology Incorporation have added few new cases to their ever-expanding product line. The unit that we have in house for this particular review should appeal more those individuals looking for a pre-modified solution. Today in the MTB Labs, we will be evaluating the Nikao F-2, a mid-tower case that features twin bubble lamps and a pre-modified side panel window."

"Epic Games has unveiled demo version of the Unreal Tournament 2004 a game that a lot of people have been waiting impatiently. The UT2004 is something more than revamped UT2003, even though there are a lot of similarities; the main is violent acts of bloody killing loads of opponents. As every good game, this DirectX 9 title allows benchmarking and today we have some good read for you 11 graphics cards based on processors from ATI, NVIDIA, S3 Graphics and XGI are benchmarked against each other."