News

Earlier it became known that Microsoft will launch its latest operating system -branded Windows 7- on the 22nd of October, later this year. As of yet, only beta versions were available of the software, but according to the German website Hartware.de, Microsoft already gives the RTM status to Windows 7 on the 13th of July. This would reportedly be done during the Worldwide Partner Conference 2009, which takes place in New Orleans that day. MSDN and Technet members will be the first to receive this version.

The Windows 7 operating system is mostly considered to be a further developed version of Windows Vista. This means that a large number of tweaks are to make the system more user friendly, more stable, and predominantly, faster. Another new feature of Windows 7 is the support for DirectX 11.

 The launch of Windows 7 draws near

During the hot summer days, most high-end graphics cards could use some additional cooling, especially when they are overclocked. With this in mind, Thermaltake launches its latest creation, the ISGC V320 graphics card cooler. This cooling block -which with a weight of 738 grams could almost be mistaken for a CPU-cooler-, features two 120 mm fans to keep the GPU cooled down.

Thermaltake's ISGC V320 has a copper base with five copper heatpipes to remove the heat from the videochip. The memory chips and optionally NVIO processor each have a cooling block of their own that is also benefiting from the airflow generated by the 120mm fans. These fans are designed to produce as little sound as possible, which means that their RPM is limited to between 800 and 1300 RPM.

The ISGC V320 is sized 241 x 125 x 63 mm and is compatible with a large variety of graphics cards, by both AMD and nVidia. The supported cards are listed below:

Two 120mm fans provide the airflow for the card

Five heatpipes transfer the heat off the copper base to the cooling block

Thermaltake's ISGC V320 requires three PCI slots

nVidia has tapped into a new market with its Ion platform. By linking their chipsets to the economic Intel Atom processor, the platform is far more versatile in the graphics department. The integrated 9400M videochip that is used on the chipset not only has more power than Intel's chip, but also sports the featuresets for HD video and support for DirectX10 and nVidia's CUDA.

The current Ion is to serve the market until the fourth quarter, later this year. After that it'll be followed up by the Ion 2 chipset, which will feature significantly more graphics power. Where the GeForce 9400M from the first Ion featured 16 stream processors, its successors is to receive 32 or even more. This would make games and CUDA applications run a lot more smoothly. It does however form a new problem: to which extent is Intel's Atom processor capable of keeping up with better-performing graphics chips?

Successor nVidia Ion to feature more shaders

During the Computex conference earlier this year, MSI already showed a number of new notebooks to the public. The line-up included the X-Slim X400, a notebook that combines a 14" size with a weight of only 1.5 kilograms. The laptop stands out due to its sleek finish and claimed battery life of nine hours. By using Intel's C-ULV platform, the X400 is extremely efficient, which means less room in the chassis has to be used to keep the system cooled down. As a result, the notebook is no thicker than 24 mm.

MSI's X400 uses a powerful Lithium-Polymer battery which should keep the laptop running about 9 hours in its most efficient mode. The notebook can be ordered with an external Blu-ray drive as well. This, the fact that its got a 1336x768 pixel HD-ready screen and the presence of the integrated HDMI output make it clear to us that the laptop's main use is to serve as a multimedia device. The compact chassis of the 14" notebook holds a cardreader, 1.3 megapixel webcam, Bluetooth and 802.11n WLAN. The integrated Intel 4500MHD IGP should provide users with the necessary 3D effects and video. The system is equipped with 2 to 4 GB of DDR2-800 memory and a harddisk of either 320 or 500 GB. A 40 Watt power adaptor is also bundled.

MSI's X400 can be ordered with external Blu-ray drive and has a battery life of up to 9 hours

Manufacturer Green House has introduced a number of new solid state drives featuring the old PATA interface. This makes it possible for older systems to use the relatively speedy solid state storage as well. The new Green House SSD's will be available in both 1.8" and 2.5" sizes, in MLC and SLC chip versions. The models with the cheaper MLC memory will be sold in capacities of 16 to 128 GB, while the largest SLC-based SSD will be 64 GB.

According to Green House, these new PATA SSD's feature an MTBF of 2 million hours, while most competitors only claim 1 to 1.5 million hours. Naturally, these claims are unconfirmed.

Green House's 1.8" models reach maximum reading- and writing speeds of respectively 65 and 55 MB/s on SLC memory, as well as 60 and 35 MB/s for the MLC versions. The 2.5" models reach speeds of about 5 MB/s more than its 1.8" counterpart, in both reading and writing. Shamefully, the controller used in the disks is n't mentioned. There's also no information on whether or not there's any disk cache present on the SSD's.

New Green House SSD's with PATA interface

nVidia officially launched its first 40nm notebook graphics cards in June already, but it will not be till August that the mass production at TSMC is initiated and the first notebooks can be equipped with the chips. In the meantime, nVidia is working on 40nm chips for the desktop graphics cards, in the form of the GT218 and GT216 GPUs. Both models are to be positioned in the budget segment and will be the successors of the GeForce 9 entry models.

VR-Zone has acquired a GPU-Z screenshot of both the GT218 and GT216 graphics cards, which will eventually be sold as the GeForce G210 and GT220. The G210 will feature 24 shaderunits, a 64-bits memory interface and 512MB of DDR2 or GDDR3 memory. This lowbudget card will cost about $30 to $35 USD and is to replace the GeForce 9400.

GeForce GT218  recognized by GPU-Z

The GT 220 shows more potential; the card sports 48 shaderunits and will be equipped with a 128-bits memory interface. Despite these improvements, the card will still be intended for the lower market segment. This model will be equipped with 1 GB of memory and is to surpass the performance of the GeForce 9500GT. It's expected that nVidia's first 40nm desktop graphics cards will be released by October, later this year. The overview below shows more detailed specifications on both of nVidia's new 40nm GPUs.

In the everlasting rivalry between nVidia and ATI/AMD, nVidia's partners have decided to do things differently: where the GeForce cards are normally praised for their performance or featureset, they have now laid the emphasis on energy efficiency. Because nVidia manufactures all of its existing GeForce 9 cards at 55nm, they're already a lot more efficient, but apparently several brands have been able to add just a bit more to the card. Gainward for instance, introduces two new editions of its GTS 250, which will be branded "Green" edition.

It's clear that the foundation of these cards is found in the G92 architecture, released in 2007. This architecture links 128 active shader units to GDDR3 graphics memory via a 256-bits memory interface. To make the card run more economically, Gainward has decreased the clock frequencies, which makes the card more similar to the old GeForce 9800GTX when it comes to performance. The 'green' GTS 250's by Gainward will become available in 512 and 1024 MB editions and will be equipped with a sturdy dualslot cooler. The clock frequencies for respectively the core, shader units and the memory on these cards are 700, 1512 and 2000 MHz, whereas a regular GTS 250 is clocked at respectively 738, 1836 and 2200 MHz.

Gainward GTS 250 'Green' edition with either 512 or 1024 MB of memorry

Reports on the cominc of a special AMD Phenom II processor were already made a few weeks ago. The 'TWKR' edition of the quadcore Phenom will be a limited edition specially selected by AMD to feature maximum overclocking capability. This places TWKR one step beyond AMD's Black Edition processors, which usually fare quite well when it comes to overclocking the 45nm chips.

The TWKR edition will not be sold in the retail channels and will be available through AMD's promotion channel. The bundle will not feature any warranty, something that doesn't surprise us given the nature of the chip. The processor is based on the 45nm 'Deneb' core and features 6 MB of shared L3 cache spread on its four active cores. The revision and stepping are identical to AMD's regular Phenom II Black Edition processor, making the TWKR version nothing more than a hand-picked quadcore from AMD's topsegment.

The Phenom II TWKR has the suffix '42' in its name, which indicates the presence of 4 cores and a standard clock frequency of 2 GHz. This frequency is reached through a 200 MHz HTT frequency with a multiplier of 10x. It's no surprise that these values aren't locked. The processor uses an increased voltage of 1,44 Vcore out of the box and the chips are specially selected to be able to reach greater voltages. With the standard voltage and decent aircooling, an overclock of 4 GHz should already be attainable. It is quite obvious that aircooling will not make the TWKR processor show its full potential, as that would require either liquid nitrogen or liquid helium.

The Phenom II TWKR features special packaging

AMD already gives a short impression of the new TWKR processor on Youtube. Overclockers as K|ngp|n, Gomeler and *chew have already toyed with the chip to find out what it was capable of. The highest clock frequency they reached that could be validated was 6,89 GHz. As of yet, there are less than 100 of these TWKR editions, with the potential varying between each chip. Image source: Legit Reviews.

The AMD Phenom II TWKR won't be found at the local PC store

German manufacturer Maxflash has added a number of solid state drives to its line-up in the form of the Rapstore series. These SSD's will be released in capacities of 64, 128 and 256 GB and use a STA 3 Gbps connector. The SSD is aimed towards the performance market segment, as it uses an Indilinx IDX110M00-LC 'Barefoot' controllerchip which, in combination with the 64 MB of writing cache allows the SSD to reach speeds of 230 MB/s and 160 MB/s for respectively reading and writing.

The memory chips used in these Rapstore SSD's are manufactured by Samsung and are of the relatively cheap MLC type. Maxflash estimates the impact resistancy of the disk to be 1500G. With a standard 2.5" chassis and a weigh of 80 grams, the disk is perfectly suited for use in notebooks. Maxflash bundles a three-year warranty plan with its Raptsore disks. The company has yet to disclose any information regarding pricing and availability.

It's no secret that Auzentech uses the Creative X-Fi audiochip on its soundcards. The company had already announced its latest card equipped with the chip, but now reports that the Auzentech HomeTheater HD will finally be available. The soundcard has a PCI-Express x1 interface and 64 MB of X-RAM. The expansion card also supports PCM 8 channel, 24-bit/192kHz, 24p True Cinema output and technologies as EAX Advanced HD 5.0, Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect. The rear of the card features two HDMI 1.3a connectors.

It's expected that the Auzentech HomeTheater HD will be released later this month. As of yet, there's no information regarding pricing and availability.

Inno3D has expanded its product line-up with a new motherboard, based on nVidia's ION-platform. The motherboard is positioned in the manufacturer's iChill series and features the mini-ITX form factor. It's expected that the system will become available in two different versions; a singlecore and a dualcore model.

There's room for two DDR2-667/800 memory modules on the board, making it possible to place up to 8 GB of RAM in the system. The motherboard uses nVidia's GeForce 9400 IGP, has one eSATA- and three SATA II-connectors, Gigabit Ethernet and 5.1-channel audio. The rear panel features D-Sub, DVI and HDMI connectors. The motherboard will be bundled with a fan and external PSU. Pricing and availability is still unknown.

Super Talent has introduced a new series of flashdisk modules that are directly connected to the PATA ports of the motherboard. These modules are available in both 40-pin and 44-pin editions, making them suitable for regular desktop systems and notebooks as well. Because the flashdisks are meant for compact systems, Super Talent has designed both an horizontal and a vertical version, to ensure that the chips will always fit inside of the chassis.

In the area of performance, the new FDM's are no match for the speedy 2.5" solid state drives, but because of their impressive search speeds, as well as the energy efficiency and the fact that the modules have no sound production, the chips are ideal for use in small thin client chassis or as bootdrive in a regular desktop or server. Super Talent will release the FDM's in MLC and SLC editions. The SLC-chip version will be available in capacities of 4, 8 and 16 GB and reach speeds of respectively 80 and 60 MB/s for reading and writing. The MLC-edition will be launched in 8, 16 and 32 GB versions and also features the 80 MB/s reading speed. With a writing speed of 40 MB/s, these chips stay behind a bit, as is to be expected from MLC chips.

Super Talent's new series of solid state storage should become available shortly, prices have not yet been mentioned.

The horizontal version is to be placed in a 90 degree angle to the PATA connector

The vertical version slides right into the PATA connector

With the Scythe Shuriken being aged just over 1.5 years, it's apparently time for the cooler to receive a successor. Scythe announced the Big Shuriken as a new low-profile CPU-cooler. This cooler weighs in at 405 grams, has dimensions of 125 x 135 x 58 mm, and features a nickled copper base, as well as four copper heatpipes. To dissipate the generated heat Scythe has decided upon a Slip Stream 120 Slim fan which rotates at between 650 and 1600 RPM. At these speeds, the fan is to produce between 13 dBA and 29 dBA, whilst maintaining an air displacement of between 27 and 63 m³/hour.

The Big Shuriken can be mounted on Intel's socket 478, LGA 775, LGA 1366. AMD's socket 754, 939 AM2(+) and AM3 are also supported.

Old versus new

Matrox has announced two new graphics cards for multi-monitor setups. The M9138 and M9148 as they are branded use a PCI-Express 16x connector and feature 1 GB of graphics memory. The new cards are an expansion to the company's existing 'M'-series and are able to connect three (M9138) or four (M9148) monitors through DisplaPort, with a maximum supported resolution of 2560x1600 per monitor. Thanks to the low-profile size of the card, it will also fit in smaller chassis.

Matrox's graphics cards have no sound production thanks to the passive cooling. The software that Matrox bundles with the cards allows any combination of monitors to be realized whilst retaining functions as pivot and stretching. The new Matrox cards can also be placed in a single system together, effectively doubling the maximum amount of supported monitors. Apart from DisplayPort, the Matrox M9138 and M9148 also support the more conventional DVI-interface. Shamefully, the maximum resolution through DVI is limited to single-link speeds, making for a total of 1920x1200 pixels.

Matrox M9138 with three DisplayPort connectors

Matrox M9148 with four DisplayPort connectors

After earlier introducing the X 5000TA, an all-in-one PC based on Intel's dualcore Atom 330 processor, manufacturer Shuttle has now added the X50 barebone to its line-up, which allows users to compile an all-in-one pc of their own. The options to choose include different memory (i.e 2 GB DDR2 memory) and a hard disk or SSD.

The 36 mm thick casing features Intel's dualcore Atom 330 1,6 GHz processor, a 15.6" touchscreen, 1.3 megapixel webcam, cardreader, Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless N, stereo speakers, microphone and a passively cooled 65 Watt power supply.

Shuttle's new X50 barebone features a recommended pricetag of 425 euro.

With its mini-card solid state drive (SSD) with SATA-interface, Samsung introduces a small SSD to serve net- and notebook users.The mini-card SSD is 80% smaller than a conventional 2.5-inch hard disk, and it also features a life expectancy of 1 million hours MTBF. Samsung hopes that these small SSD's will increase the usage of the disks in other devices and applications. With this concept in mind, the company cooperated with JEDEC when designing the form factor. To visualize the dimensions of the mini-card SSD, it's 30 x 51 x 3,75 mm and weighs 8.5 grams. The power consumption is specified at 0,3 Watt.

With the SATA II-connector, reading and writing speeds of respectively 200 MB/s and 100 MB/s are to be reached. By using the 40nm production process, the user has the choice between storage capacities of 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Apart from the the SSD can optionally be equipped with full disk encryption as well, allowing for secure data storage.

As of yet, there's no information regarding pricing and availability.

With the new Expressionist PLUS (FX3021) speakers, manufacturer Altec Lansing tries to combine design and performance with affordability. The 2.1-channel set sports a recommended price of $100 USD.

The company reports that the different design they used should be an advantage to the sound quality. The subwoofer features a downwards-positioned 5,25" driver which should also sound well on a table or desk. On top of the subwoofer, there's the on- and off-switch and the volume adjustment buttons are placed in the 2-inch stereospeakers.

It's expected that Altec Lansing's Expressionist PLUS will be released on the American market later this month.

With the Photosmart Premium, HP launches a self-proclaimed 'luxurious all-in-one'. The device is equipped with a 4,33" touchscreen and TouchSmart Web, which according to HP also allows internet browsing. To achieve this, HP used its Apps application, which should enhance and increase the size of optimalisations from programs as Google Maps and DreamWorks Animation.

Another thing is that this Photosmart does not require to be attached to a computer to print, scan or fax. To gain access to the internet, the all-in-one sports both an Ethernet connector and WiFi. The latter also allows the Photosmart to communicate with other wireless devices.

HP's new Photosmart Premium will cost about $400 USD.

OCZ has established quite a name with its Vertex series of SSD's. Because of this, it's unsurprising that the company adds new models to the line-up from time to time. Earlier, OCZ came with a special Vertex SSD for Macintosh systems and they also introduced a faster version with SLC memory chips, branded Vertex EX.

The latest addition to the Vertex SSD's is the Vertex Turbo, which features handpicked controller chips and MLC memory chips to guarantee the best performance. According to OCZ, this makes the Turbo editions up to 10% faster than a regular Vertex disk. The increase in price would also be 10%. Like the 'regular' Vertex, the Turbo features an Indilinx Barefoot controller with 64 MB cache memory and a SATA 3 Gbps connector. OCZ claims speeds of 278 and 213 MB/s for respectively reading and writing on the Turbo edition.

The Vertex Turbo should become available within a few weeks, featuring recommended pricetags of between $150 for the 30 GB entry model and about $800 for the largest 250 GB edition.

OCZ's Vertex Turbo is to be 10% faster by using handpicked chips

Toshiba has announced new Satellite notebooks, to be positioned in the manufacturer's L-series. The Satellite L510 and L515 feature a 14-inch screen, the Satellite L500 and 505 respectively a 15,6-inch and 16-inch screen, the Satellite L550 and L555 are equipped with 17,3-inch screens. Each of the notebooks has HD TruBrite widescreen monitors and an Eco Utility button, which allows for realtime adjusting of the power consumption.

The options to choose from include both Intel and AMD processors, 3 GB of memory, DVD-drive, a hard disk with a capacity of between 250 and 500 GB, 3D chip, USB Sleep-and-charge connector, and Windows Vista.

The entry model starts at $550 USD, with the most expensive version being priced $650.