The introduction of the 80gb model was simply due to the fact that 60gb hard disks are being phased out in the 2.5" variety. The manufacturers prefer to switch all models over to the newer platter size, it's actually cheaper to have just one assembly line manufacturing the 1 disk type (80gb per platter, up to 2 platters in a 2.5" model)
As for the way they are fiddling with prices, well it's unfortunate I admit but they are giving you essentially, 20gb more hard disk space and Motorstorm a 60$ US game and keeping the price the same as it was previously, this IS more value, no matter how you slice it.
Some of you bitch and moan about the backwards compatibility changes but they are a company, they need to make a profit, if they can do it in software (and they always planned to!) ultimately they may well get the software emulation to be fairly reliable. Also, don't quote me on this but I was under the impression the HARDWARE b/compatibility wasn't that great anyhow, it's certainly not all titles of PS2 and PS1 games? (note: I am not however in the camp that claims B/C is of no relevance, I certainly see why we have it and I definately see the value in it)
We have Core, previous price 300, new price 270 10% price drop on the cheapest item
Premium, previous price 400, new price 350 12.5% price drop on the mid-range item
Elite, previous price 480, new price 450 6.25% price drop on the highest cost item?
(Is it any surprise apparently the Elite is selling well at the moment, cough cough? mm)
On another nother, we've been informed today that Canada's prices are dropping and they are much closer inline with the US price (after conversion).
The real question on everyones lips (besides you American fellows) is what about the rest of us? Europe, Australia and New Zealand (and others) are more than aware of the typical 'rape'* tax applied to electronic items from the states, we've grown used to it but the consoles have been especially nasty of late (Example hard disks and CPU's - around 15% more expensive than the states AFTER conversion) Consoles however... up to 30% more expensive than the states after currency conversion! (ouch!)
Right now the Premium is RRP of 649$ AUD here which is 555$ US a far cry from 400$ US, let alone 350$ US What I and many others hope for is a price drop in our regions which not only includes the standard reduction in manufacturing costs but also includes the currency changes (obviously they should keep a buffer incase)
I'd personally like to see the US $350 ($409 AUD) 360 Premium become 459 or 499$ AUD at most. The core is mostly discontinued in Aus (and should never have been damn well created in the first place!) The Elite is _STILL_ not available in Australia! but the rumours have been strongly looking at 749$ AUD I'd like to see the new $450 360 Elite ($525 AUD) at $600 AUD or 650$ at most.
If this happens or not, that's another story, many of us have been holding out for a 'reliable edition' console with 65nm parts and better cooling, I know I won't be purchasing one until it's under 600$ and actually reliable.
1 day a month (20 working days) is 12 'free' sick days a year, that's bloody exceptional, I wouldn't complain, in my country (Aus) the industry standard is 5 per year, some jobs offer 10.
So this husband and wife, between them would effectively have 24 days a year to look after kids. Hitler be damned.
WE KNOW ALREADY. the intel quad core still performs very well in benchmarks - faster than the dual core in multi-threaded apps, one can only conclude it damn well works.
As for AMD's 'true quad' performing better, no one knows for sure, there's no real benchmarks yet at this point. AMD could release it and say 'wow, our system is 25% faster than the Q6600" and intel could say 'err so what' and release the Q6600 clocked 25% faster because there's so much damn headroom on their chips at the moment.
I'm a fanboy of neither company but right now AMD fanboys claiming "K10 will rule all!" and "Barcelona 'rapes'!' etc are totally foolish, NO ONE KNOWS YET.
Finally there's the efficiency of each core itself. Look at the Intel C2D @ 2ghz vs the X2 3800+ at 2ghz - both dual core but one of them is substantially faster than the other - efficiency on each cpu will make a difference.
I'm 29 and I've been using email 10 years, many of you out there likely longer, it's simple it's easy and I don't need to log in to some damn social networking thing just to speak to my friends - plus my email is controlled by ME! (and El-guarto, trying to sell me cock pills!)
Who writes these stupid articles, who prints them, who submits these dopey stories and why am I responding to it!?! Get off my lawn.
I picked it up, a Doom clone - awesome, on my 486-33, it was about 15fps - ugh, I couldn't play it. About 6 months later I got a DX4-100, effectively 3 times faster (and back then, 3D cards didn't exist) - guess what. About 15 fps, terrible terrible code - some of my pals still laugh about that game to this day.
The sugar you simply don't notice when you eat it all the time.
When you do diet properly and go without such things within a few weeks you can smell the sugar even in things which are meant to be savoury. Tomato sauce, ketchup etc. I recall a buddy had a sister who worked at KFC, she brought home a bag of the buns and my pal said here try one, I essentially said 'wtf? It's a dry bun!' he insisted and well he was right, quite tasty - it's full of sugar.
I for one lost 40lbs in about 5 months by simply cutting out alcohol, coffee, most meat, most bread and pasta - switched to vegetables, fruit, water and excercise - 40lbs in 5 months, maybe 45!
I also regained it when I fell off the rails at the same pace I lost it - intense:(
I am re-posting this as it was moderated offtopic a few months back - it is still to an extent off topic but again I'd like to discuss responsiveness of an operating system and why Windows UI seems so sluggish.
Gents,
I have a relatively simple and odd question. What's with Vista and XP's UI?
See the thing is, I keep upgrading machines, 1ghz, 2ghz, 3ghz, 3ghz dual core, 512mb, 1gb, 2gb - etc The user interface is laggy EVER so slightly laggy but laggy, there's this 'engine' underneath the hood, since the days of 95 (yes 95) where it just feels wrong, it feels like the same code to be honest from version to version? It's a ridiculous claim, have no doubt, I realise that but god-damnit it just seems that way.
Here's an example You open a copy of Windows Explorer under Windows 95 with a floppy in the drive, 2 networked drives mapped and a cdrom in the drive. It pauses for X amount of time, then it kind of starts to move, then suddenly bam it's done. Do the same thing in XP. It seems to behave identically - I mean the entire thing feels like the same chunk of code.
I was under the impression 95 / XP and Vista were all very very different under the hood, am I incorrect? Has the primary 'engine' changed, has the kernel drastically changed but the Explorer UI remained similar?
It's not just opening Explorer, it's the start menu, it's alt tabbing, it's maximising it's the 'feel' - I'm well I'm sick of it! It feels the same from version to version!
I don't need a slick graphical UI and well in all honesty I don't NEED to learn Mac OSX but the fact it is more responsive in some ways is great, I just want an OS which I feel in control of.
Sorry to make such a vague post but what am I doing wrong? Is there some magical tweaks out there which make Windows behave ultra reliably and snappily? I know about the tweak ui power tool and I know about changing the figures to 0ms delays but even then things don't feel 'right'
Will a quad core help, I found a dual core did not actually fix many of these problems. On this note, somewhat on topic (to my post) - I recall the 'bitboys' claiming they were going to release their 'glaze 3d' card with drivers which sync'd windows native 'frame rate' to the refresh rate of a monitor. It sounds like nothing but it was going to create the illusion of an incredibly smooth scrolling Window for 2D - just moving windows around Trivial sounding but the end result IMPRESSION of slickness, of responsiveness - no more tearing. Such a small thing but from an end user perspective it might make things smoother.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Any answers or sadly flames? When oh when, if ever will Microsofts interface and 'back end' truely be something special and new, if ever?
The Wii and it's games completely and utterly caters to the lowest common denominator of gamer, it's well 'party' and kiddy stuff only with a few good but extremely rare exceptions.
The Wii controller turned out to be the gimmick some speculated it might be and disapointed the optomistic. Instead of improving your average games or rather revoloutionising them, it simply dumbed them down or made them awkward, meanwhile it made more simpler games much easier and arguably 'more fun'
I have no problem with party games or kiddy games, I do have a problem with a distinct lack of other games though, a Zelda here and a Metroid Prime there doesn't make a real system to me. (I for one am a single player gamer, I look my story, I like depth and I enjoy it)
On top of this, the unit has multiplayer capability yet it doesn't use it for anything, although I hear ONE game might use it next year. You've got your ho-hum graphics which I can let slide if it makes up for it or has a huge library of awesome games (like the PS2) but sadly, it doesn't.
I know several gamers (not hardcore) who purchased it and have since basically let it sit there and gather dust because another selection of mini games doesn't interest them.
The Wii might be selling but I have this underlying thought that perhaps you'll find a lot of these impulse Wii purchases by non gamers will end up simply letting it gather dust in 12 months too or it'll be that one trick Wii sports wonder for each christmas but these gamers won't purchase many more.
Honestly the system reminds me of one of those little Atari joystick with 24 games IN the controller jobs - and to think I was nearly hyped to buy one.
Gigabyte have attempted MULTIPLE times to extort money from me for a product under warranty. They flat out refuse to honour the warranty without payment on a video card - it's STILL under warranty and broken in my drawer at work. I'd rather stick with Asus or MSI or well,,, anyone but Gigabyte.
Oh and the amazing overclocking Gigabyte DS3? Yeah, not so much, go search on google for the 'post bug' problems where it refuses to re-boot even if the overclock was stable for a week, or it re-boots itself at the post stage multiple times for no apparent reason - very flakey - very cheap - not interested.
Yep the foreign 'rape tax' is ridiculous over here! I whipped up a small spreadsheet at work comparing RRP vs USA RRP vs USA RRP converted using todays exchange rate.
Most components have a traditional 'rape tax' which we're accustomed to, between 5 and 15% The Xbox 360 Premium (disclaimer! IIRC!) was about 25% more expensive than the US price even after conversion of $ The Xbox 360 Elite IIRC (749$ here, so the rumours go) was 24 or 23% more expensive
An AMD 6000+ CPU was 3% LESS expensive here than the states after conversion (?)
but the big one.
Sony PS3 at 599$ US vs our 1000$ AUD - 700$ US after conversion, for a whopping 30% 'rape' !
If Sony drop the AU price to say 749$ to match the elite, it could be very smart, but I doubt they will.
Don't buy a quad core for 266$ US in July 22n'd after the price drops, by the time a game ACTUALLY needs or uses it, a quad core will be 80$ US and faster.......
Same with a 500 / 600/ 700$ DX10 card, you want to play DX10 games fast? by the time the games come out we'll have the GF8900 not the 8800 (for example)
etc etc etc Hell, Carmack demo'd Doom 3 on the GF3 with it's amazing shaders! - what actual cards ended up extensively using shaders and looking good / fast in Doom 3? Hint: wasn't the GF3, hell I think even the GF4 wasn't too good either,........
Slashdot Mirror
The introduction of the 80gb model was simply due to the fact that 60gb hard disks are being phased out in the 2.5" variety.
The manufacturers prefer to switch all models over to the newer platter size, it's actually cheaper to have just one assembly line manufacturing the 1 disk type (80gb per platter, up to 2 platters in a 2.5" model)
As for the way they are fiddling with prices, well it's unfortunate I admit but they are giving you essentially, 20gb more hard disk space and Motorstorm a 60$ US game and keeping the price the same as it was previously, this IS more value, no matter how you slice it.
Some of you bitch and moan about the backwards compatibility changes but they are a company, they need to make a profit, if they can do it in software (and they always planned to!) ultimately they may well get the software emulation to be fairly reliable.
Also, don't quote me on this but I was under the impression the HARDWARE b/compatibility wasn't that great anyhow, it's certainly not all titles of PS2 and PS1 games?
(note: I am not however in the camp that claims B/C is of no relevance, I certainly see why we have it and I definately see the value in it)
Ok first things first.
We have
Core, previous price 300, new price 270
10% price drop on the cheapest item
Premium, previous price 400, new price 350
12.5% price drop on the mid-range item
Elite, previous price 480, new price 450
6.25% price drop on the highest cost item?
(Is it any surprise apparently the Elite is selling well at the moment, cough cough? mm)
On another nother, we've been informed today that Canada's prices are dropping and they are much closer inline with the US price (after conversion).
The real question on everyones lips (besides you American fellows) is what about the rest of us?
Europe, Australia and New Zealand (and others) are more than aware of the typical 'rape'* tax applied to electronic items from the states, we've grown used to it but the consoles have been especially nasty of late
(Example hard disks and CPU's - around 15% more expensive than the states AFTER conversion)
Consoles however... up to 30% more expensive than the states after currency conversion! (ouch!)
Right now the Premium is RRP of 649$ AUD here which is 555$ US a far cry from 400$ US, let alone 350$ US
What I and many others hope for is a price drop in our regions which not only includes the standard reduction in manufacturing costs but also includes the currency changes (obviously they should keep a buffer incase)
I'd personally like to see the US $350 ($409 AUD) 360 Premium become 459 or 499$ AUD at most.
The core is mostly discontinued in Aus (and should never have been damn well created in the first place!)
The Elite is _STILL_ not available in Australia! but the rumours have been strongly looking at 749$ AUD
I'd like to see the new $450 360 Elite ($525 AUD) at $600 AUD or 650$ at most.
If this happens or not, that's another story, many of us have been holding out for a 'reliable edition' console with 65nm parts and better cooling, I know I won't be purchasing one until it's under 600$ and actually reliable.
1 day a month (20 working days) is 12 'free' sick days a year, that's bloody exceptional, I wouldn't complain, in my country (Aus) the industry standard is 5 per year, some jobs offer 10.
So this husband and wife, between them would effectively have 24 days a year to look after kids.
Hitler be damned.
You screwed up a Robocop quote, how could you?
Please put down your weapon, you have 20 seconds to comply.
Iraqi drops gun
You now have 15 seconds to comply......
(watch the extended directors cut, it's gruesome)
Looks like crap? Please,................ that series is about the gameplay ANYHOW plus it looks good.
As for frame rates, do you even know how console development works? Target graphics first, frame rate second.
For the betterment of the internets, stop posting.
I think you'll find it's actually 'epic lulz'
(oh boy oh boy, genuine 'lols' here from me on this whole shambles)
You don't need BTX, it's pretty much a complete failure, ATX is fine - but yeah the rest needs to go :(
but I ain't down with that!
(it's worth the karma hit damnit)
Absoloutely agreed on all points, totally - +6 please.
Oh god these AMD guys just won't drop this.
WE KNOW ALREADY. the intel quad core still performs very well in benchmarks - faster than the dual core in multi-threaded apps, one can only conclude it damn well works.
As for AMD's 'true quad' performing better, no one knows for sure, there's no real benchmarks yet at this point.
AMD could release it and say 'wow, our system is 25% faster than the Q6600" and intel could say 'err so what' and release the Q6600 clocked 25% faster because there's so much damn headroom on their chips at the moment.
I'm a fanboy of neither company but right now AMD fanboys claiming "K10 will rule all!" and "Barcelona 'rapes'!' etc are totally foolish, NO ONE KNOWS YET.
Finally there's the efficiency of each core itself.
Look at the Intel C2D @ 2ghz vs the X2 3800+ at 2ghz - both dual core but one of them is substantially faster than the other - efficiency on each cpu will make a difference.
Seriously, who gives a shit?
I'm 29 and I've been using email 10 years, many of you out there likely longer, it's simple it's easy and I don't need to log in to some damn social networking thing just to speak to my friends - plus my email is controlled by ME! (and El-guarto, trying to sell me cock pills!)
Who writes these stupid articles, who prints them, who submits these dopey stories and why am I responding to it!?!
Get off my lawn.
I picked it up, a Doom clone - awesome, on my 486-33, it was about 15fps - ugh, I couldn't play it.
About 6 months later I got a DX4-100, effectively 3 times faster (and back then, 3D cards didn't exist) - guess what.
About 15 fps, terrible terrible code - some of my pals still laugh about that game to this day.
Totally, what bugs me is it's been like this for over 10 years, what on earth?
Oh god it's so true! :(
:(
The sugar you simply don't notice when you eat it all the time.
When you do diet properly and go without such things within a few weeks you can smell the sugar even in things which are meant to be savoury.
Tomato sauce, ketchup etc.
I recall a buddy had a sister who worked at KFC, she brought home a bag of the buns and my pal said here try one, I essentially said 'wtf? It's a dry bun!' he insisted and well he was right, quite tasty - it's full of sugar.
I for one lost 40lbs in about 5 months by simply cutting out alcohol, coffee, most meat, most bread and pasta - switched to vegetables, fruit, water and excercise - 40lbs in 5 months, maybe 45!
I also regained it when I fell off the rails at the same pace I lost it - intense
Someone please take this all the way to +5.
Thank you.
Exactly the kind of response I was looking for, I'd be willing to bet Vista does exactly the same thing as 95 does in regards to that kind of thing.
It's like there's a piece of code that's been sitting around for 15 years that is 'good enough, let's keep it!'... not good.
I am re-posting this as it was moderated offtopic a few months back - it is still to an extent off topic but again I'd like to discuss responsiveness of an operating system and why Windows UI seems so sluggish.
Gents,
I have a relatively simple and odd question.
What's with Vista and XP's UI?
See the thing is, I keep upgrading machines, 1ghz, 2ghz, 3ghz, 3ghz dual core, 512mb, 1gb, 2gb - etc
The user interface is laggy
EVER so slightly laggy but laggy, there's this 'engine' underneath the hood, since the days of 95 (yes 95) where it just feels wrong, it feels like the same code to be honest from version to version?
It's a ridiculous claim, have no doubt, I realise that but god-damnit it just seems that way.
Here's an example
You open a copy of Windows Explorer under Windows 95 with a floppy in the drive, 2 networked drives mapped and a cdrom in the drive.
It pauses for X amount of time, then it kind of starts to move, then suddenly bam it's done.
Do the same thing in XP.
It seems to behave identically - I mean the entire thing feels like the same chunk of code.
I was under the impression 95 / XP and Vista were all very very different under the hood, am I incorrect?
Has the primary 'engine' changed, has the kernel drastically changed but the Explorer UI remained similar?
It's not just opening Explorer, it's the start menu, it's alt tabbing, it's maximising it's the 'feel' - I'm well I'm sick of it!
It feels the same from version to version!
I don't need a slick graphical UI and well in all honesty I don't NEED to learn Mac OSX but the fact it is more responsive in some ways is great, I just want an OS which I feel in control of.
Sorry to make such a vague post but what am I doing wrong? Is there some magical tweaks out there which make Windows behave ultra reliably and snappily?
I know about the tweak ui power tool and I know about changing the figures to 0ms delays but even then things don't feel 'right'
Will a quad core help, I found a dual core did not actually fix many of these problems.
On this note, somewhat on topic (to my post) - I recall the 'bitboys' claiming they were going to release their 'glaze 3d' card with drivers which sync'd windows native 'frame rate' to the refresh rate of a monitor.
It sounds like nothing but it was going to create the illusion of an incredibly smooth scrolling Window for 2D - just moving windows around
Trivial sounding but the end result IMPRESSION of slickness, of responsiveness - no more tearing.
Such a small thing but from an end user perspective it might make things smoother.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Any answers or sadly flames?
When oh when, if ever will Microsofts interface and 'back end' truely be something special and new, if ever?
LOL I don't know what I'm doing, ok - I've only been overclocking hardware for 15 years.
Oh and the FSB MCH and RAM had voltage increases but nice try! - register an account next time dipshit.
The Wii and it's games completely and utterly caters to the lowest common denominator of gamer, it's well 'party' and kiddy stuff only with a few good but extremely rare exceptions.
The Wii controller turned out to be the gimmick some speculated it might be and disapointed the optomistic.
Instead of improving your average games or rather revoloutionising them, it simply dumbed them down or made them awkward, meanwhile it made more simpler games much easier and arguably 'more fun'
I have no problem with party games or kiddy games, I do have a problem with a distinct lack of other games though, a Zelda here and a Metroid Prime there doesn't make a real system to me.
(I for one am a single player gamer, I look my story, I like depth and I enjoy it)
On top of this, the unit has multiplayer capability yet it doesn't use it for anything, although I hear ONE game might use it next year.
You've got your ho-hum graphics which I can let slide if it makes up for it or has a huge library of awesome games (like the PS2) but sadly, it doesn't.
I know several gamers (not hardcore) who purchased it and have since basically let it sit there and gather dust because another selection of mini games doesn't interest them.
The Wii might be selling but I have this underlying thought that perhaps you'll find a lot of these impulse Wii purchases by non gamers will end up simply letting it gather dust in 12 months too or it'll be that one trick Wii sports wonder for each christmas but these gamers won't purchase many more.
Honestly the system reminds me of one of those little Atari joystick with 24 games IN the controller jobs - and to think I was nearly hyped to buy one.
Gigabyte have attempted MULTIPLE times to extort money from me for a product under warranty.
They flat out refuse to honour the warranty without payment on a video card - it's STILL under warranty and broken in my drawer at work.
I'd rather stick with Asus or MSI or well,,, anyone but Gigabyte.
Oh and the amazing overclocking Gigabyte DS3? Yeah, not so much, go search on google for the 'post bug' problems where it refuses to re-boot even if the overclock was stable for a week, or it re-boots itself at the post stage multiple times for no apparent reason - very flakey - very cheap - not interested.
Ubuntu working well with wireless networking?
LOL, No!
You're either a WEP user, a damned liar or you only did your WPA testing very very recently.
Yep the foreign 'rape tax' is ridiculous over here!
I whipped up a small spreadsheet at work comparing RRP vs USA RRP vs USA RRP converted using todays exchange rate.
Most components have a traditional 'rape tax' which we're accustomed to, between 5 and 15%
The Xbox 360 Premium (disclaimer! IIRC!) was about 25% more expensive than the US price even after conversion of $
The Xbox 360 Elite IIRC (749$ here, so the rumours go) was 24 or 23% more expensive
An AMD 6000+ CPU was 3% LESS expensive here than the states after conversion (?)
but the big one.
Sony PS3 at 599$ US vs our 1000$ AUD - 700$ US after conversion, for a whopping 30% 'rape' !
If Sony drop the AU price to say 749$ to match the elite, it could be very smart, but I doubt they will.
So true, should be a +5 not +4
Don't buy a quad core for 266$ US in July 22n'd after the price drops, by the time a game ACTUALLY needs or uses it, a quad core will be 80$ US and faster.......
Same with a 500 / 600/ 700$ DX10 card, you want to play DX10 games fast? by the time the games come out we'll have the GF8900 not the 8800 (for example)
etc etc etc
Hell, Carmack demo'd Doom 3 on the GF3 with it's amazing shaders! - what actual cards ended up extensively using shaders and looking good / fast in Doom 3?
Hint: wasn't the GF3, hell I think even the GF4 wasn't too good either,........
Harsh but god, so true! so true.
Surprisingly thanks to an episode of Ducktales from about 15 years ago.
:)
Twice the distance from the centre to one side