Slashdot Mirror

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.

wrinkledshirt writes "Here's a bunch of AMD Athlon 64 reviews, courtesy of 8Dimensional." AcesHardware and HardOCP match the Athlon 64 line against the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. amdmb, FiringSquad, and SharkyExtreme take a closer look at the FX-51. AthlonXP and PCStats have glowing reviews of the chips. Digit-Life compares the new Athlon 64 with Opteron and a Pentium 4. LegitReviews and Overclockers.com.au also both have succinct reviews of the FX-51. Overall the reviews speak very highly of the Athlon 64 and the FX version of the chip, with the only downside being the cost, especially of the FX chip.

zoobaby writes "Here is a sneak peak at nVidia's upcoming line of cards. No hard specs, but some nice notes on changes from current NV2x to NV3x, also some very nice screenshots to show off what it will be capable of." In related news, Tim_F noticed that memory manufacturer Crucial is entering the video card business with their first card based on the ATI Radeon 8500le.

albamuth asks: "A friend of mine recently handed me $1000 (in the form of her credit card) and asked me to put together the best artist-friendly PC possible. Though I enjoy reading system guide recommendations put out by the likes of Arstechnica and Sharkyextreme, it seems that most, if not all, of these guides are geared towards gaming purposes. My friend is an artist and was surprised when I approaced with a list of decidedly non-Apple recommendations. I countered that the lousiest new iMac would cost $999 and the reason why "all the other artists" use them is because of brand loyalty. However, now I'm tediously looking through motherboard and monitor reviews for things like Firewire ports and color accuracy, respectively. There's plenty of other things to think about as well: Photoshop vs. GIMP, [slide] scanners, video capture, etc. Though I'm pretty dogmatic on getting an AMD, I would like to hear opinions on hardware/software for a media/arts-oriented box."

GrandCow writes: "There's a really interesting article over at Sharky Extreme on why the computer industry is slowing down recently. He talks about looking for the killer application that will make him go out and spend the big money on a whole new system... and can't find it. It's a really good read. For lots of the people on /. (me included) getting the latest hardware piece is a given, but for many people there's just no real reason to." Strangely, the proposed solution seems to be for the hardware industry to write bloated code so people will have more incentive to replace their currently-OK PCs. (Huh?) All I want is a machine on which Broadcast 2000 works.

GrandCow writes: "There's a really interesting article over at Sharky Extreme on why the computer industry is slowing down recently. He talks about looking for the killer application that will make him go out and spend the big money on a whole new system... and can't find it. It's a really good read. For lots of the people on /. (me included) getting the latest hardware piece is a given, but for many people there's just no real reason to." Strangely, the proposed solution seems to be for the hardware industry to write bloated code so people will have more incentive to replace their currently-OK PCs. (Huh?) All I want is a machine on which Broadcast 2000 works.

Couple of more in depth hands on looks at the GeForce 3 popped up lately including Sharky's coverage (with DX8 screenshots) and AnandTech's take. Same basic story. Good card, ahead of its time, overpriced, nothing will take advantage of its best features. I bet in 12 months we think differently.

Couple of more in depth hands on looks at the GeForce 3 popped up lately including Sharky's coverage (with DX8 screenshots) and AnandTech's take. Same basic story. Good card, ahead of its time, overpriced, nothing will take advantage of its best features. I bet in 12 months we think differently.

ravedaddy writes: "AMD is again upping the ante in the processor war with two new high-performance products: the Athlon 1.33GHz, designed to operate on the 133MHz DDR EV6 bus, and the Athlon 1.3GHz, which runs on the 100MHz DDR bus. There are a couple of reviews pitting the 1.33 Athlon versus the Pentium 4 1.3 and 1.5GHz at Sharky's and at Hardware Central." I'm still happy with last-year's Athlon -- does anyone harbor any lingering thoughts that AMD is a second-class citizen in the chipmaking world?

A reader writes: "There's a pretty lengthy interview with NVIDIA, which covers many interesting current topics, including the Xbox, BeOS support, Mac support and the NV20." And they covered more quality control - that's been my major problem with the cards.

ravedaddy and quite a number of other folks wrote in with the news that Sharky's looks at the processor which benchmarks very well in comparison to Intel's 800MHz Celeron - the AMD Duron 850. Last week, with the release of the Celeron with a 100 Mhz FSB ^[?] , Intel jumped forward - while AMD's Duron has an equivalent 200 Mhz bus (100 Mhz buses). It looks like AMD is keeping the crown in the "Value" category.

nvidia3dfxatibobby writes "According to this interview & 3dfx tribute, gambling upon buying Gigapixel and then hoping to book a spot in Microsoft's Xbox is the theory or rather last gamble that failed and thus brought the curtain down on 3dfx interactive. Of course since then, NVIDIA booked their spot in the Xbox and 3dfx were left in the dust. The interview also looks at a former 3dfx employee's perspective now working for NVIDIA and hence talking for NVIDIA."

ravedaddy writes: "The Pentium 4 has been out for a few weeks now but with only Intel's own motherboard having come out upon release of the P4, the choice was limited. SE has reviewed of the first Intel 850 based motherboard from ASUS the P4T, which is actually faster than Intel's own. With features including the i850 chipset, a 400MHz FSB, four RIMM slots, ATA/100, five PCI slots and AGP Pro 4x, the ASUS P4T looks formidable. Using this new board, the authors were able to overclock the Pentium 4 1.5GHz easily up to 1.68GHz." Does it seem like the 2nd GHz mark is approaching a lot faster than the first one did?

ravedaddy writes: "The Pentium 4 has been out for a few weeks now but with only Intel's own motherboard having come out upon release of the P4, the choice was limited. SE has reviewed of the first Intel 850 based motherboard from ASUS the P4T, which is actually faster than Intel's own. With features including the i850 chipset, a 400MHz FSB, four RIMM slots, ATA/100, five PCI slots and AGP Pro 4x, the ASUS P4T looks formidable. Using this new board, the authors were able to overclock the Pentium 4 1.5GHz easily up to 1.68GHz." Does it seem like the 2nd GHz mark is approaching a lot faster than the first one did?

pippa writes: "There's a technical piece [at Sharky Extreme] on Intel's Itanium, which is a new processor family and architecture, designed by Intel and Hewlett Packard, with the future of high-end server and workstation computing in mind. EPIC processors are capable of addressing a 64-bit memory space. In comparison, 32-bit x86 processors access a relatively small 32-bit address space, or up to 4GB of memory."

Submissions about the P4 flow in like the tides, so here's a batch of them. Rooster sent us the Hot Hardware take. TBM sent us Ace's extensive comparison of the P4 and K7. Piete submitted a fairly negative review of the chip (between the RDRAM thing, the motherboard thing, and the fact that the chip just isn't much faster for normal use, that's not surprising). Slashdot Minion sent in Hard OCP and Sharky Extreme's respective reviews (including 200fps Quake).

ravedaddy writes: "With the Pentium 4 in mail order stores now (before Intel's release date), [Sharky Extreme] felt it was time to give an update on the status of Intel's next generation chip as well as a look at some more information on Intel's upcoming SDR and DDR chipsets (Brookdale) for the Pentium 4." Key words: "Don't be foolish and buy now. You can't actually buy a Pentium 4 motherboard yet, so you won't be able to use a Pentium 4 right away, anyway."

An unnamed correspondent writes "For those of you that can't afford to spend $600 on a video card (like everyone!) there's a really thorough comparison of different the best 10 value (meaning $150) 3D graphics cards, using chips from Matrox, NVIDIA, 3dfx and ATI. The authors show off benchmarks on an AMD Duron 700 for 3D and then look at DVD as well as 2D."

An unnamed correspondent writes: "The Tech Report has posted a review of AMD's 760 chipset. This is the one that includes a 133 MHz DDR bus, with support for 133 MHz DDR (a.k.a. PC2100) SDRAM. Benchmarks were done using a 1.2 GHz Athlon, and include everything from memory bandwidth tests to a variety of Quake III scores; they even attempted Linux tests, but Linux and the 760 wouldn't play nice." For another point of view, Fr0child writes "Today is the day that AMD officially announces their DDR SDRAM supporting chipset, the AMD 760. They promise "Increasing Memory Data Rate by Up to 100 Percent," which is quite promising to say the least. Of course, who would sit back and believe what a manufacturer says without verification? Anandtech has taken an in depth look at all the performance and features of the AMD 760. Looks like the combination of DDR + Athlon easily topples the RDRAM + Intel platforms out there."

And on the other, other hand, romeomustdie writes: "According to this [Sharky Extreme] piece, AMD is finally debuting the 760 DDR capable chipset, which is, for the most part, an evolutionary step up from the 750 chipset which has been out for the past year. Boasting a faster system bus, support for DDR memory, and a brand new South Bridge, AMD has set themselves up to not only surpass their first-generation offering, but also the current performance Athlon chipset, VIA's KT133. DDR is finally here to stay."

risotto writes "There's always that dilemma of whether to upgrade your CPU or your video card first. There's a useful piece that shows some of today's fastest 3D accelerators but on lower end systems like an Intel Celeron 700 and a AMD Duron 700. There's some pretty big performance jumps to be had by throwing a T&L capable Geforce 2 GTS into a low end system in Quake III and the like."

Othello writes: "Sharky managed to dig up some insider info on why we aren't going to see the Pentium 4 this month. There are chipset problems with ICH2 that are causing the delay. The processor should be out around week 48, they say, which is late November or early December."

Crusader writes: "Matt Matthews has produced an extensive series of benchmarks which examine four separate games' performance on the Voodoo5, the Rage 128 Pro, the G400 Max, and the GeForce 2 3D graphics cards under Linux. Performance against Windows 98 is also included." We also received: driveitlikeyoustoleit writes, "3dfx, NVIDIA and ATI's best are all pitted against each other in a high-end 3D video card roundup. The authors pit six GeForce2 GTS (from ASUS, Creative, ELSA and Hercules) based cards against an ATI Radeon 256 and a 3dfx Voodoo5 5500. Performance for a change isn't the only criteria in question (although the end scores are somewhat weighted in favor of fps) but also at full-scene anti-aliasing, image quality and DVD performance/quality are critically looked at. The screen shots page showing off FSAA comparisons are great visual indicators of what the cards can do."

Crusader writes: "Matt Matthews has produced an extensive series of benchmarks which examine four separate games' performance on the Voodoo5, the Rage 128 Pro, the G400 Max, and the GeForce 2 3D graphics cards under Linux. Performance against Windows 98 is also included." We also received: driveitlikeyoustoleit writes, "3dfx, NVIDIA and ATI's best are all pitted against each other in a high-end 3D video card roundup. The authors pit six GeForce2 GTS (from ASUS, Creative, ELSA and Hercules) based cards against an ATI Radeon 256 and a 3dfx Voodoo5 5500. Performance for a change isn't the only criteria in question (although the end scores are somewhat weighted in favor of fps) but also at full-scene anti-aliasing, image quality and DVD performance/quality are critically looked at. The screen shots page showing off FSAA comparisons are great visual indicators of what the cards can do."

MuthaPussBucket writes: "Luckily for consumers, prices of hard drives continue to come down and now more manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have licensed the TiVO and ReplayTV technology to use in their own products. SE takes a look at the Panasonic ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder Model PV-HS2000. This one looks as though it's one of the pricer ones but it's also one of the better models."

MuthaPussBucket writes: "Luckily for consumers, prices of hard drives continue to come down and now more manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have licensed the TiVO and ReplayTV technology to use in their own products. SE takes a look at the Panasonic ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder Model PV-HS2000. This one looks as though it's one of the pricer ones but it's also one of the better models."

An anonymous reader sent us an overview of the AMD 760 chipset, and benchmarks to give some real numbers to DDR RAM. (10-15% speed increase over comparable SDRAM systems)

An anonymous reader sent us an overview of the AMD 760 chipset, and benchmarks to give some real numbers to DDR RAM. (10-15% speed increase over comparable SDRAM systems)

Fosters writes: "There's a short story about the old days of the 3D graphics world, when 3dfx (3Dfx) were kings of 3D and how things have changed in today's industry. The authors talk about how that came about, albeit somewhat light-heartedly. This sums it up as the author says, "To this day, I truly believe that this was the turning point for 3dfx and their SuperG downhill slide (that's a winter Olympics event). And it wasn't because of some fancy technology, a military leader (depends on how you look at some of the former VPs at 3dfx), or even a drill instructor named Zim (yeah, Starship Troopers- too easy). 3dfx started to lose their fan-boys and early technology adopters to NVIDIA then, who were waiting and watching, as 'Bugs' do, with TNT, TNT2 and something more than '22-bits' of color.'"

ManWithNoName writes "In the Private Eye, there's an interesting look at NVIDIA's involvement (which was officially announced today) in the X-Box, with their APU and iGPU and how these technologies could have the potential to be used for other products other than Xbox. There's also a very satirical "General Industry Interview" (involving Sony, Sega, 3dfx, NVIDIA, ATI etc...)with everyone involved in the industry that either is inside the Xbox or has tried to get into it over the pasty year. On a more serious note, the authors talk about a conspiracy that Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts with the whole Delay to DX8 causing NVIDIA, 3dfx and ATI to delay the releases of their next generation 3D chips, which are dependant upon the unreleased API."

ManWithNoName writes "In the Private Eye, there's an interesting look at NVIDIA's involvement (which was officially announced today) in the X-Box, with their APU and iGPU and how these technologies could have the potential to be used for other products other than Xbox. There's also a very satirical "General Industry Interview" (involving Sony, Sega, 3dfx, NVIDIA, ATI etc...)with everyone involved in the industry that either is inside the Xbox or has tried to get into it over the pasty year. On a more serious note, the authors talk about a conspiracy that Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts with the whole Delay to DX8 causing NVIDIA, 3dfx and ATI to delay the releases of their next generation 3D chips, which are dependant upon the unreleased API."

A SV reader writes "SharkyExtreme just posted the confidential Intel desktop roadmap for CPUs. Intel is really pushing AMD with a Tulatin at 1.26GHz. and a Pentium4 at 2GHz shipping Q3 of 2001. Also -- Intel is not abandoning RDRAM but they are adding support of DDR memory. The bottom line is that Intel is developing SDR/DDR SDRAM chipsets for future Intel processors."

A SV reader writes "SharkyExtreme just posted the confidential Intel desktop roadmap for CPUs. Intel is really pushing AMD with a Tulatin at 1.26GHz. and a Pentium4 at 2GHz shipping Q3 of 2001. Also -- Intel is not abandoning RDRAM but they are adding support of DDR memory. The bottom line is that Intel is developing SDR/DDR SDRAM chipsets for future Intel processors."

noname (guess who ;) writes, "There's a really thorough look at ATI's Radeon 256 32MB (which we've not seen yet due to the delay in shipping) and the technology behind it. The author of this piece not only pits it against NVIDIA's best (the GeForce2)also went behind the scenes of ATI's HyperZ technology by interviewing some engineers about the 3D graphics pipeline. Finally we get to the bottom of who's better, the GeForce2 or the Radeon and it looks like a win for NVIDIA here."

noname (guess who ;) writes, "There's a really thorough look at ATI's Radeon 256 32MB (which we've not seen yet due to the delay in shipping) and the technology behind it. The author of this piece not only pits it against NVIDIA's best (the GeForce2)also went behind the scenes of ATI's HyperZ technology by interviewing some engineers about the 3D graphics pipeline. Finally we get to the bottom of who's better, the GeForce2 or the Radeon and it looks like a win for NVIDIA here."

noname (guess who ;) writes, "There's a really thorough look at ATI's Radeon 256 32MB (which we've not seen yet due to the delay in shipping) and the technology behind it. The author of this piece not only pits it against NVIDIA's best (the GeForce2)also went behind the scenes of ATI's HyperZ technology by interviewing some engineers about the 3D graphics pipeline. Finally we get to the bottom of who's better, the GeForce2 or the Radeon and it looks like a win for NVIDIA here."

mr.blobby writes "3dfx' long awaited "big-daddy" version of the Voodoo5, the Voodoo5 6000 has been delayed almost as long as Daikatana but according to this news story, the card (with all of its four TMUs - texture memory units) and its external power supply has been sighted at a gaming trade show in London (ECTS) and is still slated for a release. There are a few benchmarks showing it beating NVIDIA's GeForce 2 which can't be bad. The author said this "the card was hitting around 50-60 FPS at 1600x1400", which seems most impressive."

rubyred writes "AMD is at it again today and has added to their Duron line-up and released the 750MHz, which performed well against the Celerons from Intel. There are reviews on Sharky's and Anand's. Also Matrox, who we've not heard from in while has let loose a new .18micron based G450 chip, which is set for the corporate world. The 2D performance looks really good but the gaming... well it's another Matrox product. Still their Linux drivers might get better this time around. Again the same two sites have previews of the card."

rubyred writes "AMD is at it again today and has added to their Duron line-up and released the 750MHz, which performed well against the Celerons from Intel. There are reviews on Sharky's and Anand's. Also Matrox, who we've not heard from in while has let loose a new .18micron based G450 chip, which is set for the corporate world. The 2D performance looks really good but the gaming... well it's another Matrox product. Still their Linux drivers might get better this time around. Again the same two sites have previews of the card."

rubyred writes "AMD is at it again today and has added to their Duron line-up and released the 750MHz, which performed well against the Celerons from Intel. There are reviews on Sharky's and Anand's. Also Matrox, who we've not heard from in while has let loose a new .18micron based G450 chip, which is set for the corporate world. The 2D performance looks really good but the gaming... well it's another Matrox product. Still their Linux drivers might get better this time around. Again the same two sites have previews of the card."

An unnamed correspondent writes: "It turns out that, for the Pentium 4, we're all going to need to buy a new case and power supply. The standard heatsink will weigh 450g (about 1 pound) and will therefore need four supports below the CPU, supports that require a new motherboard tray. Also, the Pentium 4 will need a new power supply with a new four-connector plug. This means that, if you want a Pentium 4, your old case and power supply will have to go. :( SE has more on it in their IDF Report." A little like AT / ATX and all the cousins; it's not that surprising that something has to give, but a shame that some of today's very nice cases will have to be tossed or modified to fit the P4.

Dwayne Mulford writes: "ATI has released their new RADEON with 64MB of DDR memory. It's clocked at 183MHz and really gives the NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS a run for its money. ATI has their product info here and Sharky Extreme did a review of it here."

JellyBeansOnToastWithStrawberryJamonTop writes: "I noticed in Sharky Extreme and Tom's Hardware coverage of the AMD Duron processor that they both have details on the overclocking capabilities of the processor. Looks like the new Celeron 300A, eh?" It's cool to see that AMD has not locked out overclockers with their new chips. But where are the dual Athlon motherboards, please? Updated 3:19GMT by t: Apropos of overclocking, check out Feedmag's not-uninteresting take on overclocking culture.

quakedaddy writes: "There's a pretty comical look at 'John Romero's Suck it down I will make you my bitch Daikatana.' Guess it's official -- Ion Storm's cash cow to be never will be. The first person shooter that took four years to make is just poo. There's also some info on Paul Steed's sacking from id Software here." Anyone else played it?

quakedaddy writes: "There's a pretty comical look at 'John Romero's Suck it down I will make you my bitch Daikatana.' Guess it's official -- Ion Storm's cash cow to be never will be. The first person shooter that took four years to make is just poo. There's also some info on Paul Steed's sacking from id Software here." Anyone else played it?

maniack writes: "NVIDIA lifted the ban on Geforce 2 benchmarks and specs at midnight, and Anandtech right away posted an article on the card. They put it up against all of its competitors, including the Viper 2, the Rage Fury MAXX, the Voodoo 4 and 5, and several flavors of the old Geforce including a 64 MB DDR card. The 32 MB DDR Geforce 2 GTS ripped the competition apart in almost every benchmark including the texture heavy Q3 Quaver. The Geforce 2 was the top performer in both high-end and low-end systems. The article also explores the performance hit cause by full scene anti-aliasing. Sharkyextreme also has a review, as does Hot Hardware. "

JellyBeans writes: "There's a hands-on preview of 3dfx' Napalm chip (the Voodoo5 5500), where it's compared to a GeForce 256 from NVIDIA. It seems that two chips are NOT better than one in this case (SLI of the Voodoo5 doesn't beat the GeForce)." Okay, these cards can be used for more than games, but who do I think I'm kidding?

Karl "Kielbasa" Wise sent us an excellent article that showed up on Sharkyextreme detailing Intel's CPU stuffs planned out for future. RDRAM, Socket 370, and other tidbits.

Jonas writes, "I spotted that ATI has announced their next generation intentions where the 3D industry is concerned with their "Charisma Engine" and "Pixel Tapestry" technologies at this year's GDC. There's also an interesting article discussing the technology involved on their next gen 3D part. "

spudwiser writes: "AMD has a press release on their Web page concerning shipment of the 900, 950, and 1000MHz Athlon processors. Also included are times for the live satellite interview with the CEO and VP of AMD." Check out some of the benchmarking info about the new chips as well. I wonder how Andy Grove ^[?] is feeling today.

Hoodoo Extreme writes, "There's a new issue out of the Private Eye which takes an interesting look at Willamette from IDF as well as some new info on RAMBUS. Later on in the piece there are some new findings on various 3D chips such as the S3 GX4-C which will follow the Savage 2000. Has anyone heard about this one? " IDF == Intel Developers Forum.