News

Sources at motherboard manufacturers report that Intel has advanced the introduction of the new Nehalem architecture to September, the original introduction being planned for the end of the year.

According to DigiTimes Intel has three Nehalem "Bloomfield" processors ready. These run at 2.66 GHz, 2.93GHz and 3.2GHz. The price being respectively 284, 562 and 999 dollar. The reason why the processors are introduced earlier has not been mentioned. It's likely that the design has been ready for quite a while. The introduction will be paired with the X58 chipset and the new LGA1366 socket.

Chipset communication is done through Quickpath, the replacement of the ancient FSB. Nehalem also has an integrated three-channel memorycontroller, which combined provide a bandwidth of 32GB/s (when using DDR3-1333). Only DDR3 memory is supported, it's expected that the prices of DDR3 memory will drop significantly. 

Mid-range Nehalem processors aren't expected until mid-2009. These will feature integrated graphics as well, like AMD is planning with its Fusion design. 

ASUS has added another version of the popular Eee PC to its line-up. The Eee PC 1000HD is the little brother of the Eee PC 1000H, which costs $549,-. The Eee PC 1000HD has a 10 inch screen with a resolution of 1024x600. The notebook uses an Intel Celeron M processor, clocked at 900 MHz. It's remarkable that ASUS has chosen not to use another Atom platform. 

The consumer can choose between a 1 GB version with Xandros Linux or a 2 GB model with Windows XP. The Eee PC 1000HD features an 80 GB harddisk and a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g network card. The Eee PC 1000HD also has an integrated 1.3megapixel webcam and comes with a 6-cell battery. It's available in the colors black and white. 

To compete with the popular Radeon HD4800 series, BFG has overclocked the 9800GTX+. The 55nm baked G92b chip that is beneath the cooler, has a standard clockspeed of 760 MHz, with the shaders and memory running at respective speeds of 1890 and 2250 MHz. This is quite a bit faster than a regular 9800GTX+, which is only clocked at 738 MHz for the core and 1836 MHz for the 128 shaders.

The card is available in Europe at a price of 167 euro. Due to the higher clockspeed this card could be beating the HD4850 almost each time, the latter however is quite a bit cheaper.

Image source: TechConnect

ASRock comes with a new motherboard, based on AMD's 770 chipset and the SB700 southbridge. According to ASRock, the board, named A770 Crossfire, has more features and better performance than other motherboards with this chipset. It's compatible with AMD's latest Phenom 9950 quadcore processor with a TDP of 140 Watt, and is able to have the two PCI-Express 2.0 slots run in 8x/8x as well, while other motherboards of this chipset are only able to place it in the less fortunate 16x/4x configuration. The board has four DDR2 slots which can house up to 8 GB of 800MHz memory.

Image source: ASRock

Thanks to the use of the SB700 southbridge, the board features six SATA and one eSATA port. There's also three PCI slots and one PCI-E 1x slot present. Apart from the SATA connectors there's also an IDE and a floppy. 

On the I/O panel on the backside of the board there are six USB 2.0 ports as well as the PS/2 and 7.1 audio connectors. There's also a Gigabit LAN port which is connected through PCI-Express and digital audioconnectors (both optical as coaxial). To configure the PCI-Express slots in a different matter, the switchcard on the motherboard hsa to be flipped, not the most user friendly method of doing things, but certainly a great option to keep prices low.

The board also features an Intelligent Energy Saver to keep the power consumption as low as possible. From internal benchmarks at ASRock, a crossfire setup with two HD4850 cards gives better performance than nVidia's GTX 260. There's no information known on prices and availability yet, but don't expect it to take long before this board hits the shelves. 

Microsoft has released more details on DirectX 11 -an expansion to the current DX10.1 that comes with Vista SP1- during the XNA  Gamefest in Seattle. The new DX11 version of the software should not only function on Vista, but also be future-proof for Windows 7 and 7.5, Vista's successors. The biggest improvements that come with the new DirectX standard are the better support for multi-core CPU's and the enhanced support for GPGPU applications. There's plenty of room for improvement left in the area of multi-core processors, seeing as most games don't use more than two cores properly. 

Tesselation is also fully implemented with the new DirectX version, making images even more realistic. The tesselator is already present in recent ATI graphics cards, but couldn't be used by game developers until the DX10.1 update. 

No explicit support of Ray-tracing has been mentioned, but it was shown earlier that older graphics cards can also perform ray-tracing through the DX9 API. DirectX 11 should also be backwards compatible with the current DX10.0 and DX10.1 standards and should work on all recent ATI and nVidia cards through software updates. 

AMD has put Catalyst 8.7, the latest WHQL drivers for its graphics card online. New to these drivers is the full support for the Radeon HD4800 series and some improvements to the 'information centre' in Catalyst's Control Panel. The Linux version of this new driver fully supports Ubuntu 8.04 and Suse Linux version 10 with SP2.

The drivers are compatible with all Radeon graphics cards newer than the 9500 series. For the all-in-wonder models there's support for all models since the 9600 AIW. The new 8.7 drivers have a number of performance enhancements and several bugs are also fixed. To start of with the performance increase:

• 3DMark Vantage: Performance increases of up to 20% is noticed in the Performance Preset on single card configured systems when using Radeon HD 36xx or Radeon HD 34xx products
• Company of Heroes: 3 to 12% better performance in some levels when using a single HD4800, HD3800 of HD3600 card.
• Lost Planet DX10: Performance increases of 4 to 15% in some levels, again using a single HD4800, HD3800 of HD3600 card.
• Call of Duty 4: 4% better performance in some maps, using a single HD4800 card
  
• Lost Planet DX9: Crossfire now scales to 1.7x and when AA and AF are enabled, performance increases of up to 80% are shown on all compatible Radeon cards.

On top of that, several bugs have been visted in both Vista and XP. A selection of the most important fixes for Vista.

• Assassins Creed: The game nows boots properly on systems using an HD2600 graphics card with 32-bit Vista
• Crysis: Edge detect is now working when playing the DX9 version of the game with UBM enabled
• Frontlines Fuel of War: On the HD3800 series the image corruption is solved when playing on the 1152x864 resolution.
• Hellgate London: game no longer crashes when the resolution is set to 2560x1600.
• Rainbow 6 Vegas: Screen no longer flickers when you switch between the desktop and the game, 8x AA also functions properly now.
• World in Conflict: solved image corruption on high settings
  
• Word of Warcraft: No more empty background when logging in with OpenGL mode.
• ZT: game no longer crashes on 1280x1024 and windowed mode
  
• The Radeon X1800 series no longer give a DTR error in some games when Catalyst AI is set to advanced

The following problems have been solved for XP:

• City of Heroes: Wrong letter display on 2560x1600 resolution
• ET Quake Wars: Game no longer flickers on crossfire systems with HD3800 cards.
• Lost Planet: No more image corruption when switching between the game and the desktop.
• Google SketchUp: The push/pull tool works properly now.
• World of Warcraft: Login problems when AA was enabled solved
• When the driver is installed from CD there will be no displayed warning anymore

For the complete list of bugfixes and existing bugs the PDF can be downloaded here.

Some bugs have also been fixed for Linux. The screen no longer fades after driver installation and the image doesn´t get corrupted when switching between laptop screen and external monitor anymore. SECAM, PAL and NTSC signals are now correctly transfered to the attached television. In Ubuntu 7.04 the command aticonfig --enable-monitor can now be used without rebooting X.

Shamefully, the linux Catalyst drivers still do not support the HD3870 X2 and the AGP versions of the HD2400/HD2600 series and also lacks the TV functionality fo the All-in-Wonder cards. Drivers for your specific configuration can be downloaded by clicking the image below.

ASUS launches three new notebooks, based on the recently introduced Intel Centrino 2 platform. This platform does not only support faster processors, but also allows better onboard graphics and wireless N. The most luxurious model is the ASUS V1V, featuring an Intel P8600 processor, which runs at 2.4 GHz and 4 GB of DDR2 800MHz memory. On top of that, the model has a 320GB harddisk and an integrated dual-layer DVD drive. The 15.4" screen has a resolution of 1680x1050 and is powered by a Radeon HD3650 graphics card with 512 MB memory.

On the outside of the V1V we find three USB2.0 ports, VGA-output, TV-out, mini-DVI, FireWire and infrared. A standard audio- and microphonejack are also present, as well as an SPDIF output. To contact the rest of the world, the V1V has a WiFi-Link-5100-AGN-module of the 802.11n standard, this of course, is next to the standard ethernet port. The laptop also has a Bluetooh 2.0 receiver, weighs 2.9 kilo and an optional docking station is available as well.

Asus V1V with Intel P8600 processor and HD3650 graphics card

Two 14.1 inch models will also be released, the F8VA and the F8VR. These versions come with respectively an Intel P8600 (2.4Ghz) and P8400 (2.26GHz). The F8VA is the more expensive one with its 4GB memory and 320GB harddisk. The ASUS F8VR has 3GB of RAM and a harddisk of 250GB. 

The F8VA also has a 1680x1050 resolution and like the V1V it is powered by a Radeon HD3650 graphics card. The F8VR has a lower resolution of only 1440x900 pixels and a slower HD3470 graphics card. Both 14.1 models have several connectors, under which 5x USB, VGA, DVI an Expresscard slot, Bluetooth 2.0 and an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam. The F8VR and F8VA also have the WiFi-Link-5100-AGN card onboard for fast wireless internet. 

Asus F8 series with 14,1 inch screen

Another feature these notebooks share is the Expressgate functionality, a technique which made its debut on a motherboard of the same brand. The Expressgate is a piece of memory on the motherboard that has a small operating system installed, which allows the usage of an internet browser and Skype software only seconds after booting up. 

The new ASUS Centrino 2 notebooks should be available in August. The laptops are priced 1499, 1199 and 999 euro for respectively the V1V, the F8VA and the F8VR version.  Image source: Computerbase.

Apacer introduces a new SATA Disk Module, a small SSD which can either be directly placed onto the motherboard, or connected to through a SATA or IDE connector. The mini-SSD by Apacer is based on the fast single-level-cell flashmemory and will come in capacities of 128MB up to 4GB,  making it perfectly suited for a simple and energy efficient internet/workcomputer or as the foundation of a VMWare system, in which the supervisor operating system can really make good use of the SLC memory's fast access times. 

Apacer mini-SSD can be placed directly on the motherboard

The SATA SSD module lives up to the SATA 1.5 Gb/s standard and has a speed of 35MB/s for reading and 25MB/s for writing. According to Apacer, this compact SSD is resistant to a rough environment, such as vibration and heat. Thanks to an 8-bit ECC error correction system, the small SSD should be able to run up to 2 million hours before it fails.

Staray's Mini Tank-series (J5-5S-SB2) combines a NAS with a mobile external harddisk solution and is built out of the earlier appeared J4 and J1. The J4 is a four bay storage device with port-multiplier functionality. The J1 is specifically designed to control and maintain data on the go. 

Specifications J5-5S-SB2:

• USB 2.0 +eSATA Host Interface
• Supports 4+1 Portable 2.5" SATA HDD (only J5)
• Port-multiplier functionality

Dell has a special offer in the United State: when purchasing an XPS M1730 for the price of 2.999 dollar, a free Xbox 360 Elite is added to your order. 

The XPS M1730 features a Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz, but at an additional cost this can be changed to a T9500 or even an X9000. The 17-inch notebook has 4GB  memory, two 200GB harddisks in RAID and two GeForce 8700M GT cards in SLI. 

Image source: ComputerBase

The XPS 630 desktop system, priced at 1.999 dollar, also comes with the free Xbox. There's no information known on similar initiatives in Europe. 

Kingston Technology launches the DataTraveler BlackBox, a USB flashdrive with hardware-based 256-bits AES encryptio, validated by the American Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS 140-2). Kingston's DataTraveler BlackBox is available in capacities of 2 GB, 4 GB and 8 GB, in the colors black, green and red.

The FIPS Level 2 standard demands a power-on selftest which checks the encryption-architecture each time the flashdrive is inserted into a USB-port. On top of that full data security has to be assured. If an invalid password is entered ten times in a row, the DataTraveler BlackBox will automatically and irreversibly format itself. 

There's more to the drive's security: apart from the 256-bits hardware-based AES-encryption, the stick is guaranteed waterproof up to a depth of 1.2 meters. The drive has a titanium-coated stainless steel casing and an extra epoxy wax coating around the controller, making the drive resistant to almost everything. 

The Kingston DataTraveler BlackBox comes with a five-year warranty. 

Recommended prices (excl. VAT):

• DataTraveler BlackBox 2 GB Black 88,-- Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 2 GB Green 90,60 Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 2 GB Red 90,60 Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 4 GB Black 129,20 Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 4 GB Green 131,80 Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 4 GB Red 131,80 Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 8 GB Black 226,-- Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 8 GB Green 228,50 Euro
• DataTraveler BlackBox 8 GB Red 228,50 Euro

Properties and specifications: 

• 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) hardware-based encryption

• flashdrive blocks and formats itself after 10 invalid password tries

• Mandatory password protection: the password can be picked by the user but certain requirements have to be met to prevent unauthorized access.

• Waterproof up to a depth of 1.2 meters

• Five year warranty plan
  

• Waterproof and titanium-coated stainless steel casing

• Dimensions: 77,9 mm x 22 mm x 12,05 mm

• Capacities: 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB

• System requirements: USB 2.0 compliant or USB 1.1 compatible USB-port

• Operating systems: Windows Vista (only 32-bit); Windows 2000 (SP3, SP4); Windows XP (SP1, SP2)

With the G2400WD, BenQ introduces a 24-inch widescreen monitor with a 4.000:1 dynamic contrastratio and a response time of 2 ms (Grey-to-Grey). The new monitor will cost about 379 Euro. 

Source: ComputerBase

The G2400WD features a WUXGA-screen (1.920 x 1200, Full-HD 1080p), a DVI- and HDMI-connector and, thanks to the TN-panel, a vertical and horizontal viewing angle of 160°. The standard contrastratio is 1.000:1, which can be enhanced up to 4.000:1 dynamically. The monitor has a brightness of 250 cd/m² and weighs just over 6 kg.

Point Of View launches its GeForce 9800GTX+, the upgraded version of the earlier released 9800 GTX. The 9800GTX+ features a 55nm GPU clocked at 738 MHz and 512 MB DDR3 memory that runs at 2200 MHz. The speed of the internal processor is raised up to 1836 MHz. 

GTX+ cards support the following technologies: 

• nVidia PhysX

Real water, clothing explosions and advanced smoke particles, to put it simple: more realistic visual effects. 

• nVidia CUDA

This technology allows software to be run over the GPU, instead of the CPU. 

• nVidia Hybrid Power

An option to make sure the card doesn't use more power than it requires. 

Point of View's new card also supports DirectX10, Shader Model 4.0 and both 2- as 3-way SLI. 

Peak launches two new products: the Peak Slider 32 Gb Flash Drive and the Peak 16 Gb 266X Compact Flash Card. 

The new Peak Slider 32 Gb USB Flash Drive has the biggest storage capacity in Peak's Slider series, this is achieved by using a special technology to double the storage capacity.

The Compact Flash 16 Gb 266X has a claimed data transfer speed of up to 40 MB/sec in reading and up to 30 MB/sec in writing. The 16 Gb 266X is sepcially designed for use in the latest digital camera's and other digital products.

Both products have a lifetime warranty and six categories of free applications, downloadable from www.peak.com. The downloadable software exists from security applications, audio- and video applications.

Kensington introduces the ComboSaver Portable Notebook Lock for mobile laptop security. This specially designed combination lock with spiral cable is Kensington's most mobile security solution so far. 

The patented T-bar mechanism and the steel wire of the ComboSaver should provide optimal security, while a 'slinky'-style spiral cable makes it possible to fold the lock, making it a lot more compact. This means that the lock is smaller and lighter than other locks on the market. 

The recommended price is € 29,99.

Elecom announced a device that functions both as harddisk reader/writer and external 3.5"/2.5" HD drive (harddisks excluded). The device can be connected through either USB or eSATA and features a handy four port USB. The recommended price is € 59,99 (incl VAT).

Specifications:

• USB 2.0/1.1
• eSATA
• Four port USB HUB - USB 2.0
• Power: DC12V, 2A
• Input Voltage (AC adapter): 100-120V, 50/60Hz
• Dimensions: (width x depth x height) - 170 x 170 x 180 mm
• Weight: 360 g (excluding harddisk)
• Bundled: USB 2.0 cable, eSATA cable, AC adapter/AC cord, Quick Guide

The Chinese newspaper Economic Daily News reported that Sony is also working on a cheap compact notebook. It's expected that most of the components for the laptop will be provided by Foxconn.

Sony's earlier netbooks were quite expensive (displayed is the Vaio C1)

Until recently, Japanese brands were hesitant to the concept of cheap netbooks, which after the introduction of the Eee PC, became quite a popular market. After brands such as MSI and Dell responded to the concept, EDN does not think it'll take much longer before Sony, Toshiba and Fujitsu will enter the market as well: they claim that it could be before the end of the year.

After Albatron, Sparkle now announces two PCI 8400GS graphics cards. The cards have pretty much the same specifications and only differ in the cooling.  The SF-PC84GS256U2LP features active cooling, while the SF-PC84GS256U2LP Passive, is as the name suggests, passively cooled.

Both PCI cards support DirectX 10.0 and feature a 64-bit memory bus, 512MB DDR2 memory clocked at 800MHz and GPU's that run at 576 MHz. Both models feature VGA, DVI and TV-Out connectors. 

With the XPC SX48P2 Deluxe, Shuttle has the first DDR3 memory-compatible barebone on the market. The present four sockets offer room for up to 8GB RAM. The latest model in the P2 line-up supports the latest Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors.

Two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots take care of high-end graphics card support, under which the ATI Radeon HD4870. The barebone has integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, fingerprint reader USB Speed link functionality and two built-in heat pipe cooling systems. The system also features two Gigabit-LAN adaptors and two eSATA connectors.

The Shuttle XPC Barebone SX48P2 Deluxe is available at a recommended price of  € 577,15 (incl VAT).

Specifications:

• Intel X48 Express / ICH9R chipset

• Supports 45nm processors and modellen from the Intel Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Quad / Core 2 Duo Series with Socket 775 (FSB up to 1600)

• Max. 8 GB Dual Channel DDR3-1600

• 8-channel HD audio with Dolby Digital Live! and DTS Connect

• 2x PCI-E 2.0 X16, 1x Mini-PCIe

• 2x Gigabit LAN

• 8x USB 2.0

• 4x SATA2, 2x eSATA

• WLAN

• Bluetooth

• USB Speed-Link

• Fingerprint reader

• I.C.E. Heat pipe cooling with OASIS module

• Solid electrolytic capacitors

• 450 watt PSU (80 PLUS)

• 325(D) x 220(B) x 210(H) mm

After the Transcend V95 USB-stick, Transcend now comes with the 8GB version from the JetFlash 110 line-up. This JetFlash 110 USB 2.0 FLash drive comes from Transcend's Hi-speed collection. The stick has dimensions of 64 x 21 x 10 mm and a slide-in USB connectorl. 

Just like the V95, it will be possible to download the 'JetFLash elite' software on the JetFlash 110-series as well, creating the following extra functionalities: 

• PC-Lock: protects the computer when the user is idle

• Autologin: username and password entered with a single click
  

• Favorites: your favorite websites always closeby

• Secret-Zip: Cryptically compressed data

• E-mail: access to Outlook Express/Microsoft Outlook

• DataBackup: backup, repair and sychronization of data
  

The JetFlash 110 will be available in the following data capacities: 512 MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and the mentioned 8GB. The USB-stick comes with a keychain and lifetime warranty.