Slashdot Mirror

Many readers wrote in with news of Intel's revelations yesterday about its upcoming Penryn and Nehalem cores. Information has been trickling out about Penryn, but the big news concerns Nehalem — the "tock" to Penryn's "tick." Nehalem will be a scalable architecture with some products having on-board memory controller, "on-package" GPU, and up to 16 threads per chip. From Ars Technica's coverage: "...Intel's Pat Gelsinger also made a number of high-level disclosures about the successor to Penryn, the 45nm Nehalem core. Unlike Penryn, which is a shrink/derivative of Core 2 Duo (Merom), Nehalem is architected from the ground up for 45nm. This is a major new design, and Gelsinger revealed some truly tantalizing details about it. Nehalem has its roots in the four-issue Core 2 Duo architecture, but the direction that it will take Intel is apparent in Gelsinger's insistence that, 'we view Nehalem as the first true dynamically scalable microarchitecture.' What Gelsinger means by this is that Nehalem is not only designed to take Intel up to eight cores on a single die, but those cores are meant to be mixed and matched with varied amounts of cache and different features in order to produce processors that are tailored to specific market segments." More details, including Intel's slideware, appear at PC Perspectives and HotHardware.

TrackinYeti writes "Performance PC Memory manufacturer, Corsair recently released a new addition to their flagship Dominator line of desktop memory, the TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF. This 2GB DDR2 memory kit features the company's DHX Dual Path Heat Xchange cooling technology, support for Enhanced Performance Profiles (EPP), it includes one of Corsair's Dominator active memory coolers, and it's rated for operation at a currently industry leading 1.25GHz."

TrackinYeti writes "HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), is the first industry supported digital-only interface, that requires a single cable to connect an output source to an HD-ready device, such as a television or monitor and deliver HD video, plus multi-channel digital audio, like Dolby Digital and DTS. Recently, Asus Computer released versions of their GeForce 7600 and Radeon X1600 cards with HDMI outputs on them, driven by an on-board Sil1930 controller. These are some of the first graphics cards to hit the market that can output HDMI natively with an integrated HDCP cipher engine and support HD-audio as well. Just the thing for that HTPC?"

TrackinYeti writes "HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), is the first industry supported digital-only interface, that requires a single cable to connect an output source to an HD-ready device, such as a television or monitor and deliver HD video, plus multi-channel digital audio, like Dolby Digital and DTS. Recently, Asus Computer released versions of their GeForce 7600 and Radeon X1600 cards with HDMI outputs on them, driven by an on-board Sil1930 controller. These are some of the first graphics cards to hit the market that can output HDMI natively with an integrated HDCP cipher engine and support HD-audio as well. Just the thing for that HTPC?"

Searching4Sasquatch writes "Hot Hardware has tested two nearly identical HP systems in an effort to determine the best solution between Intel's Viiv and AMD's LIVE! campaigns. Priced around $999, these general purpose systems are tested straight out of the box with no tweaking or refinement to illustrate how "Joe Consumer" would fare in using one of these platforms."

Twistedmelon writes "We've all heard of water cooling for processors and even graphics processors, in today's high end PCs. However, a water cooled memory module is something that hasn't been done until now. OCZ Technology recently announced their line of Flex XLC Water-Cooled RAM, with its integrated heat-spreaders that can be connected to any standard water cooling system. The memory operates much cooler under load with tight timings at DDR2-800 speeds. For those with water-cooling setups, these DIMMs could easily be tapped into an existing system allowing for quiet and robust cooling for your system memory as well."

Twistedmelon writes "We've all heard of water cooling for processors and even graphics processors, in today's high end PCs. However, a water cooled memory module is something that hasn't been done until now. OCZ Technology recently announced their line of Flex XLC Water-Cooled RAM, with its integrated heat-spreaders that can be connected to any standard water cooling system. The memory operates much cooler under load with tight timings at DDR2-800 speeds. For those with water-cooling setups, these DIMMs could easily be tapped into an existing system allowing for quiet and robust cooling for your system memory as well."

Pelly writes "For those who are interested in seeing the inner-workings of Dell's latest XPS M1710 flagship notebook, Hot Hardware has taken the time to rip the system apart and photograph the hardware for your viewing pleasure. In addition, there's some amusing overclocking attempts which utilize the sub-zero temperatures of New Hampshire's winter weather to provide an interesting spin on the review."

Spinnerbait writes "AMD officially launched their next speed bump in the Athlon 64 product line, in the form of a new 3GHz part branded the Athlon 64 6000+. This new dual-core Athlon 64 sports 1MB of on-chip cache per core and is designed for AMD's Socket AM2 platform. This chip is still built on AMD's 90nm fab node and is comprised of some 227 million transistors. It also carries a thermal power profile of about 125Watts. Unfortunately, in all the benchmarks seen here, it was still unable to catch Intel's Core 2 Duo E6700 chip at 2.66GHz."

Spinnerbait writes "AMD officially launched their next speed bump in the Athlon 64 product line, in the form of a new 3GHz part branded the Athlon 64 6000+. This new dual-core Athlon 64 sports 1MB of on-chip cache per core and is designed for AMD's Socket AM2 platform. This chip is still built on AMD's 90nm fab node and is comprised of some 227 million transistors. It also carries a thermal power profile of about 125Watts. Unfortunately, in all the benchmarks seen here, it was still unable to catch Intel's Core 2 Duo E6700 chip at 2.66GHz."

NinjaKicks writes "Intel has decided to make public details of their new 45nm manufacturing process and also has broken news that next-gen Penryn core processors are running various versions of Windows and Vista successfully. Penryn will offer a host of core tweaks over Conroe, larger cache sizes, and SSE4 support. Also, although clock speeds will be increased, processors based on Penryn should fall within the same thermal power range as Conroe. Word is Penryn will also be compatible with some of the existing motherboards on the market while others will need either a BIOS update or perhaps other board-level changes."

MojoKid writes, "AMD officially launched their QuadFX platform and FX-70 series processors today, previously known as 4x4. FX-70 series processors will be sold in matched pairs at speeds of 2.6, 2.8, and 3GHz. These chips are currently supported by NVIDIA nForce 680a chipset-based, dual-socket motherboards, namely the Asus L1N64-SLI WS, which is currently the only model available. HotHardware took a fully configured AMD QuadFX system out for a spin and though performance was impressive, the fastest 3GHz quad-core FX-74 configuration couldn't catch Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core chip in any of the benchmarks. The platform does show promise for the future, however, especially with AMD's Torenzza open socket initiative." And mikemuch writes that the QuadFX "not only fails to take the performance crown from Intel's quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700, but in the process burns almost twice as much electricity and runs significantly hotter in the process. ExtremeTech has a plethora of application and synthetic benchmarks on QuadFX, including gaming and media-encoding tests."

MojoKid writes, "AMD officially launched their QuadFX platform and FX-70 series processors today, previously known as 4x4. FX-70 series processors will be sold in matched pairs at speeds of 2.6, 2.8, and 3GHz. These chips are currently supported by NVIDIA nForce 680a chipset-based, dual-socket motherboards, namely the Asus L1N64-SLI WS, which is currently the only model available. HotHardware took a fully configured AMD QuadFX system out for a spin and though performance was impressive, the fastest 3GHz quad-core FX-74 configuration couldn't catch Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core chip in any of the benchmarks. The platform does show promise for the future, however, especially with AMD's Torenzza open socket initiative." And mikemuch writes that the QuadFX "not only fails to take the performance crown from Intel's quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700, but in the process burns almost twice as much electricity and runs significantly hotter in the process. ExtremeTech has a plethora of application and synthetic benchmarks on QuadFX, including gaming and media-encoding tests."

evanwired writes "Revolution is a word that's often thrown around with little thought in high tech circles, but this one looks real. Wired News has a comprehensive report on computer scientists' efforts to adapt graphics processors for high performance computing. The goal for these NVidia and ATI chips is to tackle non-graphics related number crunching for complex scientific calculations. NVIDIA announced this week along with its new wicked fast GeForce 8800 release the first C-compiler environment for the GPU; Wired reports that ATI is planning to release at least some of its proprietary code to the public domain to spur non-graphics related development of its technology. Meanwhile lab results are showing some amazing comparisons between CPU and GPU performance. Stanford's distributed computing project Folding@Home launched a GPU beta last month that is now publishing data putting donated GPU performance at 20-40 times the efficiency of donated CPU performance."

JiminyDigits writes "AMD recently revealed a few more details of their upcoming quad-core platform architecture called 4X4. With CPU bundles affectionately dubbed 'Quad Father,' AMD is taking advantage of the inherent benefits of their HyperTransport interconnect technology to directly connect a pair of dual Athlon 64 desktop chips together with system memory. Details here show a dual socket motherboard that support a whopping 12 SATA connections, four X16 PCI Express slots (x16,x8,x16,x8 configuration) and few other bells and whistles. Supposedly Quad Father kits will come with matched CPUs from 2.6GHz up to 3GHz."

JiminyDigits writes "AMD recently revealed a few more details of their upcoming quad-core platform architecture called 4X4. With CPU bundles affectionately dubbed 'Quad Father,' AMD is taking advantage of the inherent benefits of their HyperTransport interconnect technology to directly connect a pair of dual Athlon 64 desktop chips together with system memory. Details here show a dual socket motherboard that support a whopping 12 SATA connections, four X16 PCI Express slots (x16,x8,x16,x8 configuration) and few other bells and whistles. Supposedly Quad Father kits will come with matched CPUs from 2.6GHz up to 3GHz."

Slimpickin writes "Intel gave access to quad-core Kentsfield-based systems to select members of the press at IDF. The embargo has been lifted on a preview of performance numbers with the new 2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor. HotHardware showcases Intel quad-core performance from a few different angles, from digital video processing and encoding, to 3D modeling and rendering, along with a few of the more standard benchmarks. the new Intel quad-core puts up performance numbers, depending on the application, at nearly double the performance of a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo processor based system. Core 2 Quad will also drop right into existing motherboards that are compatible with the Core 2 processor line."

Slimpickin writes "Intel gave access to quad-core Kentsfield-based systems to select members of the press at IDF. The embargo has been lifted on a preview of performance numbers with the new 2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor. HotHardware showcases Intel quad-core performance from a few different angles, from digital video processing and encoding, to 3D modeling and rendering, along with a few of the more standard benchmarks. the new Intel quad-core puts up performance numbers, depending on the application, at nearly double the performance of a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo processor based system. Core 2 Quad will also drop right into existing motherboards that are compatible with the Core 2 processor line."

MojoKid writes "From demos of the new Alan Wake game engine on a 3.73GHz overclocked Quad-Core QX6700 to design showcases with a wafer of 80-core teraflop capable chips, Intel's IDF opening day was brimming with tech-wonder from the company affectionately known as Chipzilla. Paul Otellini also showed pics of upcoming fab facilities in Arizona (Fab 32) and Israel (Fab 28). In total, Intel will have three 45nm fabs by the end of next year at an investment of about $9B, all targeted 45nm manufacturing processes. Finally, a bevy of Quad-Core Kentsfield-based systems are shown here, with Dell and Voodoo's offering looking especially swank."

MojoKid writes "From demos of the new Alan Wake game engine on a 3.73GHz overclocked Quad-Core QX6700 to design showcases with a wafer of 80-core teraflop capable chips, Intel's IDF opening day was brimming with tech-wonder from the company affectionately known as Chipzilla. Paul Otellini also showed pics of upcoming fab facilities in Arizona (Fab 32) and Israel (Fab 28). In total, Intel will have three 45nm fabs by the end of next year at an investment of about $9B, all targeted 45nm manufacturing processes. Finally, a bevy of Quad-Core Kentsfield-based systems are shown here, with Dell and Voodoo's offering looking especially swank."

MojoKid writes "From demos of the new Alan Wake game engine on a 3.73GHz overclocked Quad-Core QX6700 to design showcases with a wafer of 80-core teraflop capable chips, Intel's IDF opening day was brimming with tech-wonder from the company affectionately known as Chipzilla. Paul Otellini also showed pics of upcoming fab facilities in Arizona (Fab 32) and Israel (Fab 28). In total, Intel will have three 45nm fabs by the end of next year at an investment of about $9B, all targeted 45nm manufacturing processes. Finally, a bevy of Quad-Core Kentsfield-based systems are shown here, with Dell and Voodoo's offering looking especially swank."

MojoKid writes "From demos of the new Alan Wake game engine on a 3.73GHz overclocked Quad-Core QX6700 to design showcases with a wafer of 80-core teraflop capable chips, Intel's IDF opening day was brimming with tech-wonder from the company affectionately known as Chipzilla. Paul Otellini also showed pics of upcoming fab facilities in Arizona (Fab 32) and Israel (Fab 28). In total, Intel will have three 45nm fabs by the end of next year at an investment of about $9B, all targeted 45nm manufacturing processes. Finally, a bevy of Quad-Core Kentsfield-based systems are shown here, with Dell and Voodoo's offering looking especially swank."

Spinnerbait writes "NVIDIA has launched another salvo of more competitively priced graphics cards, this time hitting the sub-$200 mark. The new GeForce 7900GS is built on a 90nm fab process with 20 pixel shaders and 7 vertex shaders. The end result is that just about any medium to high res gaming situation can be handled with high levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, while maintaining more than acceptable frame rates. Best of all, you can actually purchase a card in retail today, so this is no paper launch."

Spinnerbait writes "NVIDIA has launched another salvo of more competitively priced graphics cards, this time hitting the sub-$200 mark. The new GeForce 7900GS is built on a 90nm fab process with 20 pixel shaders and 7 vertex shaders. The end result is that just about any medium to high res gaming situation can be handled with high levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, while maintaining more than acceptable frame rates. Best of all, you can actually purchase a card in retail today, so this is no paper launch."

MojoDog writes "Today Universal Abit launched their AW9D and AW9D-MAX motherboards based on the Intel 975X chipset. There has been much anticipation in the industry for this series and as far as looks go, these boards are built to please. One interesting bullet point in the spec list is that these boards are "Quad Core Ready", in line with a possible year-end release of Intel's Quad-Core Kentsfield CPU perhaps? Time will tell!"

MojoDog writes "Today Universal Abit launched their AW9D and AW9D-MAX motherboards based on the Intel 975X chipset. There has been much anticipation in the industry for this series and as far as looks go, these boards are built to please. One interesting bullet point in the spec list is that these boards are "Quad Core Ready", in line with a possible year-end release of Intel's Quad-Core Kentsfield CPU perhaps? Time will tell!"

Spinnerbait writes "Today, NVIDIA will be releasing their Forceware v91.37 drivers and with them will be officially endorsing Do-It-Yourself Quad-SLI. HotHardware has put together an article detailing the steps necessary to assemble and configure a high-end Quad-SLI rig, and they give some thoughts regarding XHD Gaming and its associated costs. Those of you that are hell-bent on gaming ultra-high resolutions (1920X1200 or 2560X1600 for example), along with the highest available image quality, might want to give one of these setups a look." Before making a purchase I would recommend building that water-cooled credit card first.

Spinnerbait writes "Today, NVIDIA will be releasing their Forceware v91.37 drivers and with them will be officially endorsing Do-It-Yourself Quad-SLI. HotHardware has put together an article detailing the steps necessary to assemble and configure a high-end Quad-SLI rig, and they give some thoughts regarding XHD Gaming and its associated costs. Those of you that are hell-bent on gaming ultra-high resolutions (1920X1200 or 2560X1600 for example), along with the highest available image quality, might want to give one of these setups a look." Before making a purchase I would recommend building that water-cooled credit card first.

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: An inside look at the AMD/ATI merger, school admins backing down on cell phone invasion policies, a new launch date for Scotty's ashes, a second test for China's Tokamak fusion device, Forbe's missed the mark on IBM destruction of evidence, Skype for Mac 1.5 released, and the courts rule that customs can still rifle through your laptop - Read on for details.

An inside look at the AMD/ATI merger. Spinnerbait writes "HotHardware spent some sit-down time with a few folks close to the AMD and ATI merger, asked some probing questions and received a few insightful answers in return. They dug in deep with AMD Execs, learned all there is to know currently and even got a hint of what the future might hold for the dynamic duo (no pun intended), now joined as one. A tighter coupling of the CPU and GPU is in our future perhaps?"

School admins back down on cell phone invasion policy. Reverberant writes "In a follow up to earlier coverage about school admins wanting access to students' cellphones, Framingham officials have decided to hold off on the policy for now because they need school committee approval. The head of the school policy committee has 'no interest in bringing it up.'"

New launch date for Scotty's ashes. wolfdvh writes "The BBC reports that Star Trek actor James Doohan, who played the engineer Scotty in the original TV series, will now have his remains blasted into space in October. The actor's ashes were supposed to be sent into orbit last year, but the flight was delayed as tests were carried out on the rocket."

Second test for China's Tokamak fusion device. Haxx writes "The first plasma discharge from China's experimental advanced superconducting research center dubbed 'artificial sun' is set to occur next month. The discharge, expected about Aug. 15, will be conducted at Science Island in Hefei, in east China's Anhui Province. The experiment will test the world's first Tokamak fusion device of this kind. The new device will be an upgrade of China`s first superconducting Tokamak device. The plasma discharge will draw international attention since some scientists are concerned with risks involved in such a process"

Forbe's missed the mark on IBM destruction of evidence. An anonymous reader writes "It turns out that Forbes.com was wrong and, based on analysis of Pacer no motion has been filed against IBM for destruction of evidence. Shortly following from a major collapse in SCO's share price, a recent article Slashdot reported Forbes.com's claim that a motion had been filed against IBM for destruction of evidence. In fact, Groklaw, the main site covering the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, now reports that SCO has filed no motions of this type whatsoever in March."

Skype for Mac 1.5 released. Billy C writes "A few weeks after warez versions made the rounds on the Internet, the official Skype for Mac with video is here." While still only a preview version, brave users can now give it a shot.

Courts rule customs can rifle through your laptop. monstermagnet writes "On Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the files of a person's laptop may be searched at U.S. borders [PDF] without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion."

Spinnerbait writes "Hothardware has a review of the Western Digital WD5000KS, a member of Western Digital's Caviar SE16 family. It's a 500GB SATA 3Gb/s drive, features a 16MB cache and a 7200 RPM spindle speed. WD's Raptor line, with their 10k RPM spindle speed, may have won the overall 3.5" desktop HDD performance crown, but they don't win any capacity battles. That's where the WD5000KS comes in. Up against Seagate's finest, the Barracuda 7200.10, the half-terabyte WD5000 holds strong performance metrics."

Spinnerbait writes "Hothardware has a review of the Western Digital WD5000KS, a member of Western Digital's Caviar SE16 family. It's a 500GB SATA 3Gb/s drive, features a 16MB cache and a 7200 RPM spindle speed. WD's Raptor line, with their 10k RPM spindle speed, may have won the overall 3.5" desktop HDD performance crown, but they don't win any capacity battles. That's where the WD5000KS comes in. Up against Seagate's finest, the Barracuda 7200.10, the half-terabyte WD5000 holds strong performance metrics."

Spinnerbait writes "Hothardware has a review of the Western Digital WD5000KS, a member of Western Digital's Caviar SE16 family. It's a 500GB SATA 3Gb/s drive, features a 16MB cache and a 7200 RPM spindle speed. WD's Raptor line, with their 10k RPM spindle speed, may have won the overall 3.5" desktop HDD performance crown, but they don't win any capacity battles. That's where the WD5000KS comes in. Up against Seagate's finest, the Barracuda 7200.10, the half-terabyte WD5000 holds strong performance metrics."

NerdMaster writes "NDA for Intel Core 2 CPUs was lifted on the night from yesterday to today and all major hardware reviewing websites are posting Core 2 Duo E6700 and Core 2 Xtreme X6800 reviews. Here is a collection of several reviews so you can check for yourself whether Core 2 Duo is faster or not than Athlon 64 X2. Reviews posted at Tom's Hardware Guide, AnandTech, HEXUS, Hardware Secrets, OCAU, TweakTown, HotHardware, The Tech Report, Trusted Reviews, Legion Hardware, bit-tech, ExtremeTech, Legit Reviews, Sharky Extreme, HardOCP, PC Perspective, GotFrag Hardware, Gamepyre, X-bit Labs - Part 1, tbreak, neoseeker and Byte Sector." We've already touched on this technology, but there has been (obviously) a lot of discussion about it since it was announced.

Searching4Sasquatch writes "Hot Hardware has just posted a unique review of Dell's flagship XPS M1710 notebook. They stumbled across some very interesting information within the BIOS which seems to indicate Dell is working on a docking station with its own discrete graphics. 'The user is given the option of using either the integrated GeForce Go 7900 GTX GPU found within the system or the extremely interesting option of using the graphics card found within a docking station. Could Dell be planning on releasing an enthusiast dock that features a high-end GPU that could not otherwise be crammed into the confinements of the notebook chassis? Perhaps an upgrade to allow for standard or even Quad-SLI would be possible with such a dock.'"

MojoKid writes "Intel has been occasionally leaking performance results of their upcoming Core 2 Duo processor for the desktop, code named Conroe. At this years IDF select members of the press were allowed to get hands-on access to test systems for benchmarking. Now, coincident with this week's Computex show in Taiwan, Intel has seen fit to show us just what their soon to be released CPU can do, yet again. Select press members got together with Intel in New York city for another round of testing with Conroe. HotHardware has a performance showcase posted with scores from a Core 2 Duo E6700 machine and a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition X6800. The results, compared against the backdrop of an overclocked 2.8GHz Athlon 64 FX-60 system, look very impressive indeed for Intel."

MojoKid writes "Intel has been occasionally leaking performance results of their upcoming Core 2 Duo processor for the desktop, code named Conroe. At this years IDF select members of the press were allowed to get hands-on access to test systems for benchmarking. Now, coincident with this week's Computex show in Taiwan, Intel has seen fit to show us just what their soon to be released CPU can do, yet again. Select press members got together with Intel in New York city for another round of testing with Conroe. HotHardware has a performance showcase posted with scores from a Core 2 Duo E6700 machine and a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition X6800. The results, compared against the backdrop of an overclocked 2.8GHz Athlon 64 FX-60 system, look very impressive indeed for Intel."

MojoKid writes "Intel has been occasionally leaking performance results of their upcoming Core 2 Duo processor for the desktop, code named Conroe. At this years IDF select members of the press were allowed to get hands-on access to test systems for benchmarking. Now, coincident with this week's Computex show in Taiwan, Intel has seen fit to show us just what their soon to be released CPU can do, yet again. Select press members got together with Intel in New York city for another round of testing with Conroe. HotHardware has a performance showcase posted with scores from a Core 2 Duo E6700 machine and a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition X6800. The results, compared against the backdrop of an overclocked 2.8GHz Athlon 64 FX-60 system, look very impressive indeed for Intel."

MojoKid writes "Intel has been occasionally leaking performance results of their upcoming Core 2 Duo processor for the desktop, code named Conroe. At this years IDF select members of the press were allowed to get hands-on access to test systems for benchmarking. Now, coincident with this week's Computex show in Taiwan, Intel has seen fit to show us just what their soon to be released CPU can do, yet again. Select press members got together with Intel in New York city for another round of testing with Conroe. HotHardware has a performance showcase posted with scores from a Core 2 Duo E6700 machine and a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition X6800. The results, compared against the backdrop of an overclocked 2.8GHz Athlon 64 FX-60 system, look very impressive indeed for Intel."

MojoKid writes "Dual Graphics in Notebooks have been in development for a long time now but very few Notebook vendors have actually brought products to market. Recently, NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce 7900 series enabled manufacturers like Alienware the ability to configure Dual GPU SLI systems in a Notebook form factor. HotHardware has a world's first look at the Alienware m9700 Aurora, that comes equipped with a pair of GeForce 7900 MXM modules in a Desktop Replacement form factor. With a 2.4GHz AMD Turion64 processor, SLI and a 17" panel, this machine has more horsepower and features than many high end Desktop setups."

MojoKid writes "Dual Graphics in Notebooks have been in development for a long time now but very few Notebook vendors have actually brought products to market. Recently, NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce 7900 series enabled manufacturers like Alienware the ability to configure Dual GPU SLI systems in a Notebook form factor. HotHardware has a world's first look at the Alienware m9700 Aurora, that comes equipped with a pair of GeForce 7900 MXM modules in a Desktop Replacement form factor. With a 2.4GHz AMD Turion64 processor, SLI and a 17" panel, this machine has more horsepower and features than many high end Desktop setups."

MojoKid writes "Dual Graphics in Notebooks have been in development for a long time now but very few Notebook vendors have actually brought products to market. Recently, NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce 7900 series enabled manufacturers like Alienware the ability to configure Dual GPU SLI systems in a Notebook form factor. HotHardware has a world's first look at the Alienware m9700 Aurora, that comes equipped with a pair of GeForce 7900 MXM modules in a Desktop Replacement form factor. With a 2.4GHz AMD Turion64 processor, SLI and a 17" panel, this machine has more horsepower and features than many high end Desktop setups."

MojoKid writes "Dual Graphics in Notebooks have been in development for a long time now but very few Notebook vendors have actually brought products to market. Recently, NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce 7900 series enabled manufacturers like Alienware the ability to configure Dual GPU SLI systems in a Notebook form factor. HotHardware has a world's first look at the Alienware m9700 Aurora, that comes equipped with a pair of GeForce 7900 MXM modules in a Desktop Replacement form factor. With a 2.4GHz AMD Turion64 processor, SLI and a 17" panel, this machine has more horsepower and features than many high end Desktop setups."

MojoKid writes "When Mountain View California start-up Ageia announced a new co-processor architecture for Desktop 3D Graphics that off-loaded the heavy burden physics places on the CPU-GPU rendering pipeline, the industry applauded what looked like the enabling of a new era of PC Gaming realism. Of course, on paper and in PowerPoint, things always look impressive, so many waited with baited breath for hardware to ship. That day has come and HotHardware has fully tested a new card shipped from BFG Tech, built on Ageia's new PPU. But is this technology evolutionary or revolutionary? "

MojoKid writes "When Mountain View California start-up Ageia announced a new co-processor architecture for Desktop 3D Graphics that off-loaded the heavy burden physics places on the CPU-GPU rendering pipeline, the industry applauded what looked like the enabling of a new era of PC Gaming realism. Of course, on paper and in PowerPoint, things always look impressive, so many waited with baited breath for hardware to ship. That day has come and HotHardware has fully tested a new card shipped from BFG Tech, built on Ageia's new PPU. But is this technology evolutionary or revolutionary? "

RL-20 II Rider writes "Although Intel is hard at work readying their next-gen Conroe core for a proposed 2H '06 release, it seems engineers at the company are still improving upon the existing 65nm Presler core. This review of the brand-new 3.73GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 965 dual-core processor shows that the CPU is based on a new stepping of the Presler core that runs cooler and overclocks higher than older chips, while consuming a bit less power as well."

Spinnerbait writes "Graphics cards are all the rage in the Enthusiast Computing community, where overclocking standard off-the-shelf components is commonplace. Recently innovative cooling solutions have been brought to Graphics cards in an effort to tame the thermals of their power hungry GPUs. It looks like some of the major vendors have taken it up a notch in this area, with this ATI-based Sapphire Graphics card that employs a self-contained water cooling system. Not only does the card have potential for serious overclocking but it should do so relatively quietly as well."

Spinnerbait writes "Graphics cards are all the rage in the Enthusiast Computing community, where overclocking standard off-the-shelf components is commonplace. Recently innovative cooling solutions have been brought to Graphics cards in an effort to tame the thermals of their power hungry GPUs. It looks like some of the major vendors have taken it up a notch in this area, with this ATI-based Sapphire Graphics card that employs a self-contained water cooling system. Not only does the card have potential for serious overclocking but it should do so relatively quietly as well."

SlipKid writes "PCI Express Graphics cards have allowed for some new and innovative ways to increase rendering horsepower in Desktops and Workstations. Recent introductions of NVIDIA's SLI and ATI's CrossFire technology have enabled dual PCIe Graphics cards in a load-sharing architecture. Motherboard manufacturers are jumping into the fray now and Gigabyte has released a Quad PCI Express graphics enabled motherboard, capable of running four cards at once. The board is not capable of running Quad SLI, mostly due to lack of NVIDIA driver support currently but it does offer support for eight simultaneous display outputs on four Graphics cards."

SlipKid writes "PCI Express Graphics cards have allowed for some new and innovative ways to increase rendering horsepower in Desktops and Workstations. Recent introductions of NVIDIA's SLI and ATI's CrossFire technology have enabled dual PCIe Graphics cards in a load-sharing architecture. Motherboard manufacturers are jumping into the fray now and Gigabyte has released a Quad PCI Express graphics enabled motherboard, capable of running four cards at once. The board is not capable of running Quad SLI, mostly due to lack of NVIDIA driver support currently but it does offer support for eight simultaneous display outputs on four Graphics cards."

SippinTea writes "ATI has also hastened to market with a launch of their own this week, with a new Performance Mid-Range Graphics Card. The Radeon X1800 GTO is a chopped-down version of the Radeon X1800 XL with 12 pixel pipelines and less expensive, lower speed GDDR3 DRAM on board. It compares well with the new GeForce 7600GT but can it compete with a GeForce 7900GT for only a few dollars more?"