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HP just won a US$5.6Bn contract with NASA, too.

Say what? The 8800GTX may have crap drivers in Vista, but under XP, drivers are way more than fine. And OpenGL is something that ATI has NEVER been good at ( http://www.3dnature.com/ati.html http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38 589 ). Why is this misinformation modded up?

Crap crap crap. So now what? I've been a speakeasy customer for years now: good SDSL service, excellent customer service, people who actually know configuration options. I'm seriously unhappy. From the zenith of ISPs to the nadir of corporate misculture. Will they start to dynamically rewrite speakeasy quotes between the ad and the sale?

poo. this sucks.

They better not have any F-22 Raptor flying until those patches have been rolled out...

I wrote and shipped some software once that worked fine for almost 6 months, then on April 15th (as I recall) started failing for no apparent reason in Korea only. It turned out to have a bug with Daylight Savings Time in the eastern hemisphere. That hurt. It gave me a heck of a lot of respect for calendar code ever since - I try to minimize it and then test the heck out of what's left.

"Cisco has owned the trademark for the name [iPhone] since 1996 - before Apple even started putting the letter "i" in front of its products - and thus has always had full rights to the name. As for why it took Cisco this long to make use of the name, the only possible explanations could be either it never reached an agreement for the sale of the trademark, or it chose to capitalize on the name now that it's the buzzword of the tech circles".

So, Cisco is using iPhone because products starting with "i" are hot, because Apple is selling the iPod. But Cisco is suing Apple because Apple is selling an iPhone.

Apple lawyers immediately trademarked the name "iRony".

It IS way high. So I double checked.

The actual numbers are even higher though. 10-20% yields.

This is a big reason the cell chip costs so much.

http://dailytech.com/Life+With+Penryn/article5869. htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16839253/
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/27/technology/bc.micr ochips.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/technology/27chi p.html?em&ex=1170046800&en=59a4d10473c4a8c8&ei=508 7%0A
http://news.com.com/Chip+companies+entering+their+ metal+period/2100-1006_3-6153962.html
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=29 15

Apparently no one reads anymore... http://www.tvpredictions.com/hirsch111006.htm

However, last week (January 16) Hirsch said they will now back both formats. Their first title is scheduled to be released in both Blu Ray and HD DVD on March 28. Also note that Hirsch says they encountered hurdles while producing for Blu Ray:

However, not all of what Heise printed is invalid. Hirsch did note that Vivid has encountered hurdles while producing adult entertainment for Blu-ray more so than HD DVD.

Sony is not giving any assistance in the authoring or replication of adult content on Blu-ray, said Hirsch. Sony is somehow trying to keep away such material from the format, which I think is a mistake.

Without Sonys help, Vivid had to find authoring and replication facilities on its own. Hirsch added that Sony puts restrictions on all Blu-ray manufacturing facilities that produce Disney titles disallowing them from making adult content. By comparison, the manufacturing process for Vivids HD DVD adult titles is much easier as it is able to make use of existing facilities.

• DVD was released late 1996/early 1997 and the PS2 was released 3 years later
• DVD movies were available for (almost) every new movie at many/most video rental stores
• The PS2 launched at the traditionally acceptable price of $300 US
• Besides resolution and Sound Quality the DVD format offered several benefits to everyone who would buy it (not just early adopters who had high end TVs and Surround Sound Systems

DTX looks promising for the budget PC or HTPC market. See pics, http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5648. I actually like the look of the case, would look nice next to my tv.

I wonder if AMD plans on entering the HTPC market anytime soon.. Now that AMD owns ATI, they can utilize ATI All-In-Wonder cards to build a complete PVR or HTPC setup. Imagine a low cost machine that comes with something like MythTV preloaded. *Drool*

When you read a press release talking about a new, smaller form factor, you don't expect to see a photo like this.

While those in the know realise that this is just demonstrating that you can make four motherboards from one standard circuit board panel, your average guy is going to say "holy crap, that's HUGE!".

That said, you can have a bit of caption fun with it, e.g.: "AMD announces eight-core DTX motherboard."

dailytech.com and thetechlounge.com have some great photos:.

Actually, Cisco has released an iPhone already. Not too long ago either. Here is an announcement.

Ask and ye shall recieve.

It's actually not a half bad sounding little gadget, either.

So for this significant portion of the notebook market, I think the transition to 64-bit will probably stretch out past Q2 2007. It might go quicker than most, however, because Merom uses the same chipset as Yonah.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4855

"In addition to the aerial photographs already provided by mapping companies, "ground teams" of vans equipped with multiple cameras are driving around major US cities taking millions of photographs. The (ambitious) next step for Virtual Earth 3D is a street-level map that you can walk through, seeing actual buildings and storefronts. Ultimately, Microsoft hopes to integrate this with the online outlets of individual stores to allow someone to sit at their computer at home, and enjoy a walk down the Las Vegas strip, then fly over to the shopping district, wander into a clothing outlet, and purchase a new shirt - all without ever having left their chair."

He didn't say how thick the plastic sheet or "paper" was, did he?
I think scotch tape stored 100GB didn't it? You just need to get enough tape. The rest's all grunt work.

The leaders of the business in April of course announced 515GB/square inch which sounds like a lot but how long does it take to read and back it up, right?

link

Here's the quote from NoA CEO

In an interview with GameSpot, Reggie Fils-Aime had some advice for those who are left Wii-less after today, saying that those people "should not give up hope, but they should prepared to be fast on their feet." He reaffirms that Nintendo is committed to delivering 4 million units by December 31, adding that North America will command the largest share of shipments.

You can read the whole thing here.

We came to the conclusion that only people that were buying PS3s now were going to sell it on Ebay.

But the amount of people willing to pay more than $1,000 is very small. So a handful of people will make money, but since Ebay is being flooded with PS3s there is a high chance that many of these Ebayers are going to be sorely disappointed.

The PlayStation 3 launched in Japan just 6 days ago, but according to that article, smart bidders are buying them off Yahoo! Japan auctions for near-retail prices ($510 for premium model, $420 for cheaper model).

When you factor in the eBay fees and shipping hassles, I think some American PS3 scalpers are in for a monumental letdown. I feel sorry for some of them.

located here: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4908/

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4908

There's already takeaparts of the US version, in english.

http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4908

Yeah, its DX10 compatible. Daily Tech overview of G80

Is it?

Otherwise, yes, Core 2 Duo is superior at the moment. I wonder if this will last when AMD goes to 65 nm.

I'm going to have to go with a "yes" on that one.
Process technology within a node improves continously.
Going to the next generation lithography (ie 90nm to 65nm) usually results in equal or LOWER speeds due to the process not being optimized yet.
Have a look at the AMD Q4 roadmap: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/2665_large_q407 _roadmap.png

Notice how the 65nm parts in green are SLOWER than the 90nm parts.

By the time AMD is getting 65nm up and running, Intel has had 1 whole year to optimize their 65nm process.
This means higher speeds for the Core2Duo - just look at the headroom that the overclockers are getting.

But then fanboys/hexus say things like, wait until 2007/2008...
Do you think Intel will sit still during this time?
It's extremely hard to overcome a process technology lead.
Kudos to AMD for doing it and sticking it to Intel and their clearly inferior Netburst mark-a-tecture.
But let's face it... Intel isn't going to screw it up again.

Let me throw in some other interesting tidbits:
- Intel has a much better cache density on a given process node. More cache in the same area on the same process. This is probably a side-effect of the SOI process.
- Intel's microarchitecture is 4-wide issue. AMD's is 3-wide issue - even for K8L.
- It's even better than 4-wide since they have instruction fusion which can fuse 2 or more instructions together and issue them as a single unit
- Intel has superior branch predictors
- Intel has out of order loads and stores - AMD will only relax load order and ONLY on K8L and beyond
- Intel is working on a point-to-point bus archtetcture (CSI) to compete with HT

In short - it doesn't look good for AMD.

Stop spreading these myths about OpenGL not being supported on Vista. OpenGL is will remain alive and well for Vista.

However.

OpenGL Now Natively Supported in Windows Vista

In other news Apple have moved to make Macbook pros safer. ;)

Apple caters to their users and provides them with lovingly crafted systems that the Wintel world is just incapable of ever attainting.

I stated this in the amd+ati deal, but somehow it didn't get modded :)

AMD had to go together with ATI to get _low power_ systems up. They won't make it on the processor line alone, they need to have a chipset+cpu solution (which is the most important anyway). ATI has just that, low powerconsumption (I believe their GPUs use less power too). Add to this that in the recent presentation they gave clue of what could be done to use less power. Namely the scaling of systems, this would optimise the computer for the use it will serve.

and then, intel can take a shot at it again

Yes, more rumored information here: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800

Or should I wait a while as AM2 prices drop, and then purchase lots of RAM I'll be sure to find reusable for several years to come?

I recommend waiting. AMD is planning nice ~50% price drops on dualcores at the end of July, and I'm guessing it is a major reason for AMD's slowing sales (because a lot of people are waiting until end of July before upgrading).

First off, you made a small error, the Xeon 5080 has as much L2 cache (2 x 2 MB) as the Xeon 5160 (4 MB, shared). As seen here for the 5080 and here for the 5160 (Intel hasn't updated its pricelist, yet).

Now, given the description of your needs, and given the choice between 2 x 5080 (3.73 GHz) and 2 x 5160 (3.0 GHz), the fastest system would be, without hesitation, the 2 x 5160. Despite its raw clock speed advantage, the 50xx generation is so poorly designed that even a "slow" 2 x Opteron 285 (2.6 GHz) would probably outperform it (or at least match it) and at half the power consumption & heat levels. Even Intel admit it implicitely in the way they talk about Woodcrest ("now we are back", etc). This is the whole reason why Intel developed the Core microarchitecture in the first place after all...

Between a 2 x Xeon 5160, and a quad dual-core Opteron (8 cores), I don't know. It really depends whether your workload scales well with the number of cores, and on how much it depends on memory latency & throughput. Technically speaking a quad dual-core Opteron, such as 4 x Opteron 865 (1.8 GHz), offers a similar or a slightly more important amount of raw computing power than a 2 x Xeon 5160, offers easily up to twice the memory throughput and offers up to half the memory latency (but only for local physical memory, not memory accessed over HT links). But a quad dual-core Opteron would also cost about $1000 more in CPUs alone. But then again the Opteron DDR400 memory would be cheaper than the Xeon FB-DIMM sticks, etc. Overall I estimate a 4 x Opteron 865 would be about $400-$800 more expensive than a 2 x 5160. And we really can't tell which one is better for you because there are too many variables, one of the system could literally be 40% faster than the other one, and it is hard to tell which one without doing real tests on real hardware. If possible, ask the vendor to lend you a system (this is what we do at work).

If I were you I would maybe choose the 2 x 5160, if only because it will be the first Woodcrest system in your hands, and you will be able to test it yourself in your environment with your apps. So you will have a pretty good idea of what it's capable of.

Oh and your $5K quote looks reasonable given the Windows license, the SAS disk, etc.

Good article but nothing beats a picture from This article

Good article but nothing beats a picture from This article

the world's biggest computer-chip maker plans to reduce prices on Pentium processors by as much as 60 percent...

Intel officials told them the price cuts will start July 23...

Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent... Intel also told him that it plans to lower Pentium prices by 60 percent.

The big price cuts will supposedly start on July 23, which is also the day Conroe (LGA775 Core 2 Duo for desktops) will be introduced. Conroe will be replacing the current Pentium D and Pentium 4 processors, and eventually Celeron D (Apple will not use any of these CPUs). Compared to Conroe, the current high-end Pentium D will look like a mid range CPU. The mid-range Pentium 4 will look like a low-end CPU. The big price cuts will look appropriate. Note that Pentium D, Pentium 4, and Celeron D will work in Core 2 Duo desktop motherboards.

Apple so far has only used Yonah-based Core Duo and Core Solo, which don't use the same chipsets and sockets as Core 2 Duo for desktops. Core 2 Duo for notebooks will not be introduced until late August at the earliest, so I'm sure the big price cuts will not apply to Yonah CPUs. The smaller price cut mentioned in TFA (15 percent) makes sense because a 2.33GHz Core Duo will be introduced on June 25. This new fastest Core Duo should be priced about the same as the current fastest model (2.16GHz) and the second-fastest model is usually about 15 percent cheaper than the fastest.

No seriously - they are. Acording to Sony, the PS3 is not a gaming console. Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison is "We believe that the PS3 will be the place where our users play games, watch films, browse the Web, and use other [home] computer functions. The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC." It is supposed to replace desktop computers, be a total media center and play some games on the side.

Oh yeah, it'll cure cancer too.

Well according to Sony, the PS3 is not a gaming console. No seriously, it will replace desktop computers, be a total media center and play some games on the side. Hence the overkill on capabilities.

Not to mention I heard it'll cure cancer too.

Some of Sony's products have been amazing, especially some of the commercial stuff. On the other hand, I have bought several pieces of overpriced junk from Sony. After a particularly useless pair of noise cancelling headphones, I'm not buying a PS3 just on principle. Add rootkits to that if I need more convincing.

Sony may be able to pull off what Microsoft wants to do which is make the game console a general purpose net surfing, email appliance. It hasn't worked yet but maybe someone will get it right yet; maybe Sony; but I'm not holding my breath.

Maybe the PS4 (yes I know it doesn't exist yet/ever) will redeem them but consumers have long memories and some of them hold grudges.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2634

Speaking of laptops starting fires, why is it no one's talking about this:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2607
Why does an 11 year old have a brand new iBook anyway!!! I didn't even get a freakin' Speak'n'Spell until my 16th birthday.

Well, I don't really know, but it may have something to do with this:

Editor In Chief and CEO of Tom's Hardware Both Step Down

IMO, tomshardware.com "jumped the shark" several years prior to this (2001?). Seemed like Tom stopped writing articles to focus on starting a corporate empire. Once all of the so called "editors" started putting their hands in the pie, the quality suffered quite a bit. Now it seems like everything on the site is targeted at the clueless newbie and paginated to maximize advertising revenue.

on another link spilling this news over on Daily Tech that reads and i quote. [quote] Interestingly, the members of the committee that supported the bill said that they voted for the bill because existing competition to another bill that was already approved by a different committee. The decision to support the current bill they said, had nothing to do with actual concerns on the future of the Internet and what net neutrality is all about. [/quote]

existing competition? what competition? if they arent going to decided on these important issues then why the hell are they there in the first place? 3rd rate politics all the way will always reign until someone with some balls and backbone will let their common sense be heard and voted on, rather than dancing around the issue.

Then you'll be glad to hear that ATI's new southbridge, the SB600, has AHCI SATA.
At least, that's what I read on http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2490& ref=y

Intel might be the king in the performance-per-watt race, but AMD is still the king in the far more important performance-per-dollar race.

If you look at what Conroe is set to be priced at, it will be half the price with better performance than the closest AMD parts (as they are today anyway). All I've seen from AMD since they took the performance crown is just as expensive as the Intel of old. AMD is looking to be in a world of hurt.

Of course, all this means is that you always need competition around, regardless of who's ahead.

Are they really? Conroe has been shown to be quicker in limited tests overseen by Intel. Note that, as far as I am aware, none of the 'independent' testers so far have been responsible for setting up any of the test machines. And while I am sure Intel did not do anything untoward, can you honestly guarantee that absolutely everything is fair and equal in that test?

Take a look at this article: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2487

It's showing the new woodcrest chips to be somewhere between 5 - 15% faster, as opposed to Intels claimed 33%.

Finally, have you considered that AMD may just be working on something new. For a start this is their first AM2 chip, they will surely start ramping the core clock as well as the memory clock soon. And they have kept very quiet about their other future developments, not to mention any process changes (ie. catching up with Intels 65nm lead).

So while Intel may indeed recapture the top performance slot for a while it's likely to be transient until AMD release their next big thing. Which will capture the performance crown for a while until Intel release their next big thing. And so on.

we'll all be on point and have been handed yet one more piece of a puzzle to understand (I read the article, I'm not totally sure it makes sense to me) and be able to guide friends and family to informed decisions about what equipment to buy and how to make it work. (To friends and family: "You'll have to make sure the TV and player you buy has HDMI so you'll get to see the pretty pictures. No, wait!, You might not need HDMI afterall. Of course, you'll have to have it by the year 2010.")

In the article, ATI says they will introduce products supporting DisplayPort in 2007. Note that DisplayPort, like HDMI, is supposedly backwards-compatible with DVI. It better be easy to hook up an DisplayPort video player to an HDMI television without losing the ability to play HDCP content.

sony can't afford the ps3 to be a dud they lost $578M in Q1 http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2024 but they did say it was mostly because of ps3 development also samsung made $2B so sony really needs ps3 because they should have been able to make money even with ps3 development.