ATI Radeon HD 4770, VGA Pertama dengan Chip 40nm

Situs PC Pop asal Jepang menampilkan beberapa slide menarik mengenai kartu grafis terbaru ATI Radeon HD 4770 yang akan datang dengan chip berfabrikasi 40nm, menjadikan ATI sebagai pemimpin sementara dalam persaingannya melawan NVIDIA.

Berdasarkan spesifikasi yang dijelaskan di situs, Radeon HD 4770 (RV470) kemungkinan besar akan bekerja lebih cepat dibandingkan NVIDIA 9800GT, dan kemenangan juga didapat dari kisaran harganya yang dipatok pada $99, yang berarti lebih rendah jika dibandingkan dengan harga 9800GT yang sekarang antara $119 sampai $139.

VGA ini makin berkilau dengan chip processingnya yang sudah menggunakan fabrikasi 40nm sehingga bisa menampung lebih banyak transistor ke dalamnya yang total ada 826 juta, berbanding 9800GT yang masih menggunakan fabrikasi 65nm dan 55nm. Sebagai tambahan Radeon HD 4770 menyediakan memori GDDR5 yang lebih cepat, tapi sayangnya jumlah memori video (frame buffer size) yang disediakan baru ada 512 MB, tenaga proses mencapai 960 GLOPs, clock speed pada 750 MHz dan clock memory sebesar 800 MHz menggunakan memory bus 128-bit, dan konsumsi tenaganya sekitar 80 watt.

DirectX 10 vs. DirectX 10.1

VGA ini sudah lebih jauh mengungguli 9800GT dengan dukungannya terhadap DirectX 10.1. Tapi peningkatan seperti apakah yang diusung DirectX versi terbaru ini? Dari diagram yang ada pada slide oleh AMD, di sana diperlihatkan game PC STALKER: Clear Sky sebagai benchmark. Pengaturan resolusi layar pada 1920x1200 dengan patch DirectX 10.1 menghasilkan FPS (Frame per Second) hampir mencapai 40. Sedikit lebih baik dibandingkan DirectX 10 yang hanya sanggup mencapai 36 FPS. Selain itu efek bayangan dan cahaya menjadi lebih realistis dengan teknik rendering min/max shadow map terbaru untuk menghasilkan kualitas tingkat tinggi terpaan cahaya pada permukaan suatu benda.

Fit PC2

How small is it? About the size of a paperback book. Designed to fit just about anywhere, the Fit-PC2 (Linux model) sports a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530, 1GB of DDR2-533, 160GB hard drive, preloaded with Ubuntu Linux 8.04, for $359. You can go even more bare bones with models that come sans operating system and only a bay for a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive (buy it separately); those start at $225.

Fanless Operation

fit-PC2 is totally fanless - the all-aluminum case dissipates heat. This has two advantages -

• • fit-PC2 is noiseless, or absolutely silent if used with a solid state disk.
  • Increased reliability due to no moving parts.

A Standard PC

fit-PC2 may look like an appliance, but it's a full PC including -

• 1.6GHz x86 CPU
• 1GB RAM
• SATA hard disk
• DVI with graphics acceleration
• High definition audio
• LAN and WLAN
• 6 USB ports

fit-PC2 fully supports all major operating systems.

See fit-PC2 Specifications

VAIO LT Series PC/TV - Premium Model

This all-in-one PC has no tower at all. Everything is enclosed within the 22-inch widescreen display. The VAIO features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB of L2 cache, a 1T-byte hard drive, 4GB of RAM, wireless keyboard and mouse, 802.11 a/b/g/n, and Blu-ray Disc media support. Price: $3299.

Powerful PC performance

Featuring an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9300 (2.50GHz) with 6MB L2 Cache. Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Ultimate is the most complete edition of Windows Vista®, with an array of advanced technologies. Comes with 4GB RAM¹³ and massive 1 terabyte² hard drive tucked behind a slim and stylish LCD TV. 802.11a/b/g/n wireless LAN technology¹⁰ offers a massive boost in wireless connection speed and range.

Experience Blu-ray Disc™ media playback

Blu-ray Disc™ media support lets you play back¹⁶ HD Blu-ray Disc movies in stunning clarity. Blu-ray Disc™ optical drive lets you record 25-50GB of video¹⁷ or data to a single Blu-ray Disc™ media (sold separately). Powerful PC lets you watch and record analog, digital and cable TV, including premium HD channels¹⁵ to which you subscribe to.

XBRITE-HiColor™ LCD technology

Enjoy incredibly crisp images and HD video on a 22”⁸ WSXGA+ (1680X1050) LCD with XBRITE-HiColor™ technology.

All-in-One Design

Mount on your bedroom, kitchen or office wall for a chic, space-saving computing experience¹⁸. Framed 22”⁸ wall-mountable HD display with transparent border produces a stunning, floating effect. Wireless keyboard and mouse free you to work from your sofa without cables.

Honda Develops Brain Interface for Robot Control

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

The system, which was developed with the Japanese government-affiliated Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International and precision equipment maker Shimadzu, builds on previous work announced three years ago towards a possible future where devices can be controlled by thought.

In 2006 Honda and ATR researchers managed to get a robotic hand to move by analyzing brain activity using a large MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner like that found in hospitals.

The latest work is a step more advanced and measures the electrical activity in a person’s brain using electroencephalography (EEG) and blood flow within the brain using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to produce data that is then interpreted into control information. It requires no physical movement.

The system was not demonstrated on Tuesday but Honda did release a video of experiments. It shows a controller sitting in a chair with a large hemispheric scanner over his head, like the sit-down hair dryers you find in hair salons.

Both the EEG and NIRS techniques are established but the analyzing process for the data is new. Honda said the system uses statistical processing of the complex information to distinguish brain activities with high precision without any physical motion.

In the video, the controller is shown one of four cards — right hand, left hand, foot and tongue — and asked to visualize making a corresponding movement. After being shown the card for the right hand he visualizes moving that hand but physically remains completely still. After an indeterminable period Honda’s Asimo robot, to which the system is hooked-up, raises its right hand.

Honda claims a 90 percent success rate using this method to correctly analyze thoughts.

The video starts off by proposing a world in which air conditioners will automatically come on when people in the room think its too hot, where car doors open when owners approach with arms loaded with shopping and where homeowners can think about tasks that need to be done and robots interpret the thoughts and get on with the jobs.

That day is clearly a long way off but with the latest development the system makes a big jump from being fixed to portable. It’s impossible to move an MRI machine around but the computer attached to the scanner, while large, is in theory portable. The entire machine, scanner and chair appears to take up about the same amount of space as a small car.

ATR and Honda began research into BMI technology in 2005.

Intel launches Xeon Processor 5500 series

Previously codenamed Nehalem-EP, the processor 5500 improves system speed and includes the Intel Turbo Boost Technology, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, integrated power gates and Next-Generation Intel Virtualisation Technology (VT).

Software vendors currently supporting the series-based platform, include Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP AG, Sun Microsystems and VMware.

Corey Loehr, group manager A/NZ Enterprise and Solution Sales for Intel said the series offers 70 percent more performance, 40 percent lower system cost and 50 percent fewer cores.

“This is the most significant server performance launch in Intel’s history since the Pentium Pro processor in 1995.

“In 2015, architecture will be very different to what it is today. Customers are trying to reduce costs and complexity in looking to standardise their architecture.

“We see people wanting less architecture. This is a great opportunity for them to consider this platform as a way to move towards that.”

Loehr added there is not a data centre today where customers are not looking at energy efficiency.

He said the enterprise-class chips adjust energy usage levels by using a processor idle power level of 10 watts, enabling a 50 percent reduction in system idle power compared to the previous generation.

Intel has also unveiled the L5518 and L5508 versions of Intel Xeon processors.

The L5518 offers 2.13 GHz and a power level of 60 watts. The L5508 offers 2.00 GHz and a power level of 38 watts.

Loehr said there are three pillars of a data centre; Compute; which carries the Intel Xeon 5500 platform with enhanced compute and I/O virtualisation.

The Network; 10Gb Ethernet controller and support for Unified fabric and Storage; Open platform and Performance Breakthroughs (SSDS).

Intel's Core i7 processors

by Scott Wasson

Those of us who are conversant with technology are more or less conditioned to accept and even expect change as a natural part of the course of things. New gadgets and gizmos debut regularly, each one offering some set of advantages or refinements over the prior generation. As a result, well, you folks are a rather difficult lot to impress, frankly speaking. But today is a day when one should sit up and take notice. I've been reviewing processors for nearly ten years now, and the Core i7 processors we're examining here represent one of the most consequential shifts in the industry during that entire span.

Intel, as you know, has been leading its smaller rival AMD in the performance sweeps for some time now, with a virtually unbroken lead since the debut of the first Core 2 processors more than two years ago. Even so, AMD has retained a theoretical (and sometimes practical) advantage in terms of basic system architecture throughout that time, thanks to the changes it introduced with its original K8 (Athlon 64 and Opteron) processors five years back. Those changes included the integration of the memory controller onto the CPU die, the elimination of the front-side bus, and its replacement with a fast, narrow chip-to-chip interconnect known as HyperTransport. This system architecture has served AMD quite well, particularly in multi-socket servers, where the Opteron became a formidable player in very short order and has retained a foothold even with AMD's recent struggles.

Now, Intel aims to rob AMD of that advantage by introducing a new system architecture of its own, one that mirror's AMD's in key respects but is intended to be newer, faster, and better. At the heart of this project is a new microprocessor, code-named Nehalem during its development and now officially christened as the Core i7.

Yeah, I dunno about the name, either. Let's just roll with it.

The Core i7 design is based on current Core 2 processors but has been widely revised, from its front end to its memory and I/O interfaces and nearly everywhere in between. The Core i7 integrates four cores into a single chip, brings the memory controller onboard, and introduces a low-latency point-to-point interconnect called QuickPath to replace the front-side bus. Intel has modified the chip to take advantage of this new system infrastructure, tweaking it throughout to accommodate the increased flow of data and instructions through its four cores. The memory subsystem and cache hierarchy have been redesigned, and simultaneous multithreading—better known by its marketing name, Hyper-Threading—makes its return, as well. The end result blurs the line between an evolutionary new product and a revolutionary one, with vastly more bandwidth and performance potential than we've ever seen in a single CPU socket.

Yahoo offers tools to help marketers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo introduced several tools on Tuesday that it says will help marketers target their ads more efficiently at a time when many of them are cutting advertising spending drastically.
One of the new products lets marketers target people with tailored display ads based on the terms they used in Yahoo’s search engine.

Another tool customizes display ads based on the websites people have visited and their activity on those sites.

“Marketers are looking for increased accountability for every dollar they spend,” said Michael Walrath, senior vice president of Yahoo’s Advertising Marketplaces Group, in a statement.

Yahoo will also introduce a search advertising tool next month that lets marketers control what time and day of the week they want their ads to run, and what age group or gender they want to target.

Yahoo, which has been struggling to retain market share against bigger rival Google Inc, launched the new tools at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual conference in Florida.

Yahoo’s new Chief Executive Carol Bartz is expected to announce major management reorganization as early as this week, according to press reports.

Separately, Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday at the company’s analyst day he wants to team up with the Yahoo to take on Google.

Ballmer added that pooling resources with Yahoo does not mean he wants to acquire the company. Microsoft walked away from its $47.5 billion buyout offer for Yahoo last May.

Shares of Yahoo were up 3.4 percent at $12.38 in early Nasdaq trading on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Anupreeta Das, additional reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Derek Caney)

Facebook Plays Nice

By Taylor Buley

The social network reaches out to members to help create a privacy policy.

After receiving enormous criticism for changing its terms of service policy recently, Facebook is reaching out to members to help it run the company.
“Beginning today, we are giving you a greater opportunity to voice your opinion over how Facebook is governed,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post Thursday.

As part of its new plan, the social network released a set of documents that include a statement of principles and the rights and responsibilities of Facebook and its users.

Going forward, Zuckerberg says Facebook will form a counsel to oversee revisions to these documents and will alert users about any changes.

In a conference call, Zuckerberg called Facebook’s move “unprecedented,” but said the sense of ownership displayed by its members warrants a drastic change to operating procedure. He said the company has come to learn that an open process is the only way to move forward with policy changes.

“When we amend the document, or propose an amendment, we’re going to notify anyone on Facebook who wants to be notified,” Zuckerberg said “In the event where a certain threshold of people comment, then there’s going to be a vote. Openness and transparency isn’t just an end state; it’s also a process.”

Facebook’s process change acknowledges the ongoing role users have asserted for themselves and formalizes a townhall-like process that members have advocated in the past. Prior efforts to amend Facebook policy followed the introduction of its Beacon service and changes to the way it broadcasts user activity via news feeds.

Facebook revised it terms of service policy on Feb. 4, but the change sparked such a heated privacy discussion on blogs and other sites that the company reverted back to its original policy a week later.

Source : Forbes.com

The Presidential Portrait Goes Digital

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

Barack Obama's election to U.S. president has already brought a string of firsts, and on Wednesday there came another. The official presidential portrait was shot on a digital camera for the first time.

The picture was taken by the White House's new official photographer, Pete Souza, and issued by The Office of the President Elect through its Web site. It was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file.

The switch to digital isn't a surprise. In the eight years since George W. Bush became U.S. president, the digital camera market has progressed in leaps and bounds.

In early 2001, Nikon's D1 was typical of the digital SLR cameras professionals were using. The 2.6-megapixel camera debuted in 1999 and cost about US$5,000 for the body alone. In contrast, the EOS 5D used for Obama's portrait has a 12.8-megapixel resolution and costs about $2,000.

Consumer-class digital cameras have progressed at a similar pace, with competition so intense among vendors that low-end digital SLRs are now within the grasp of many shoppers.

AMD Plans Dual-core Neo Chips Later This Year

Agam Shah, IDG News Service

Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday that it will release dual-core Neo processors in the second half of this year.

The dual-core Neo chips will be part of the Congo platform, which will deliver better performance and integrated graphics capabilities to ultraportable laptops, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. He couldn't provide an exact release date for the Neo chips.

The first single-core Neo processor was announced by the company last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The chip was part of the new Yukon platform, which includes a chipset and ATI graphics controllers.

Neo chips are power-efficient processors designed for sub-notebooks that can provide a full PC experience, according to AMD. AMD fits Neo into a new category of PCs it calls "ultrathin" laptops, which falls between the ultraportable and netbook laptop segments. Ultraportables are too expensive, while netbooks, though cheap, provide a limited PC experience, AMD contends.

The Neo chip consumes a maximum of 15 watts and AMD plans to develop more chips in the same cost and power profile in the future, said Randy Allen, senior vice president of the computing solutions group at AMD. Users can expect to see ever-increasing performance and improved battery life as AMD develops future chips and power management features.

AMD is not focusing on reducing the power consumption of its chips for netbooks, which are small, low-power laptops designed to enable basic PC applications like Web surfing and productivity software.

Netbooks are attractive for certain uses -- like in the kitchen or living room for Internet browsing -- but won't be part of mainstream computing market because the form factor limits display and keyboard size as well as processor performance, Allen said.

The company wants to deliver chips and platforms that provide an effective combination of graphics, processor and chipset for a balanced computing performance, Allen said. The chips might use more power than chips used in netbooks like Intel's Atom processor, but they will deliver a full PC experience.

AMD could dabble in what it calls the "higher-end netbook" space with Neo chips, which use higher-power chips that could degrade the battery life of netbooks, but deliver better overall performance.

Higher-end netbooks could blur the lines between netbooks and ultraportables as thin and light laptops, and AMD prefers to remain at the crosshairs of the segments, Allen said.

"What's going to happen over time is you'll see the emergence of platforms ... like the ultraportable. I think that's going to become a more dominant part of the market. I think it's going to suppress the growth rates on the netbook because more and more people will figure out 'I'm willing to spend $699 to get [an ultraportable] rather a couple of hundred dollars less to get a netbook.

source : pcworld.com

GeForce 3D Vision: Gaming Goes Stereo

By Chris Angelini

When you read a review of AMD’s latest graphics card or Intel’s latest CPU, there’s a fair chance you want to know, first and foremost, how that product performs. At least, that’s why we run the most exhaustive battery of tests possible. You take those performance figures and factor in pricing, availability, and the competition to arrive at a decision: is this worth my money or not?

Other products are evaluated far more subjectively, though. Mice, keyboards, remotes—for many of those devices, you consider look, feel, interface, and setup. It’s much more difficult to lay down a decisive judgment on an item that might just feel better in your hand than it does in mine. Hence, the challenge in reviewing Nvidia’s new GeForce 3D Vision glasses, which incite very personal opinions, depending on who wears them.

If you’ve been around long enough, then you probably remember Elsa’s 3D Revelator glasses circa 1999. The shades came bundled with Elsa’s Erazor cards, worked with DirectX games, and required a minimum 100 Hz refresh rate. Naturally, that meant you were using a CRT display. Once the world started shifting to lcd running 60 Hz, the active technology Elsa used simply wouldn’t work—the refresh rate in each eye was too low for flicker-free game play.

Besides, while the 3D glasses were cool in concept—and indeed looked impressive in a number of games—there were some downsides. First of all, the Nvidia TNT2 cards of the day took serious performance hits when they were used for stereo viewing. Back then, 800×600 was about all you could ask for. There were also a handful of driver settings that needed to be configured, depending on the game you were playing. Finally, eyestrain became a problem over time. We’re so used to playing 3D games on a 2D panel, that adding depth takes some getting used to. Nevertheless, because the Revelators were part of a hardware bundle, it didn’t hurt to try them out.

Now, LCD panel technology has come far enough along that the idea of active stereoscopic glasses is once again viable, and Nvidia is out to show that a lot can happen in 10 years. Its GeForce 3D Vision glasses were first showcased at NVISION in the fall of 2008. And they’re now ready for retail (the company can’t yet say which brick and mortar will carry them, but we’re going to go out on a limb and guess Best Buy will have them on offer).

Having played with Nvidia’s new shades for the past several days, it’s safe to say that they’ll fundamentally change the way you experience 3D. However, we’re not quite ready to call the technology bullet-proof. Onward for more about what you’ll need in order to run a set of 3D Visions and what you can expect to see with the setup purring.
Source : Tomshardware.com

AMD to Bring HD Gaming and Movies to Mobile Phones

Agam Shah, IDG News Service

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Dirk Meyer on Thursday said the company will deliver high-definition gaming and movies to devices like smartphones in an attempt to bring more usability and interactivity to the devices.

To deliver the content, AMD announced that it would build a supercomputer that will host the high-definition games and movies.

Technologies like HD gaming and movies will change the way content is created and how people will interact with their smartphones and PCs, Meyer said during a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A visual experience could add more usability to the devices, Meyer said.

People will only need a Web browser on a smartphone and a decent broadband connection to access the supercomputer to instantly play games or watch Blu-ray movies, Meyer said. The supercomputer, which will be called the Fusion Render Node, will change the way games and movies are delivered to mobile devices, Meyer said.

It will deliver a petaflop of performance, matching other supercomputers and making it the "fastest graphics supercomputer" in the world, Meyer said.

The Fusion Render Node also has many inherent advantages over a supercomputer, Meyer said. It will consume a tenth of the power of a supercomputer while fitting in a room, rather than halls like some other supercomputers.

The "graphics supercomputer" is essentially a rack of high-performance desktops with ATI 4800 series graphics cards and Phenom II processors connected to each other and crunching tasks simultaneously. The GPUs and CPUs will work in a coherent fashion, but the petaflop performance is based primarily on the GPUs' floating point capabilities, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The system can be expanded by adding more gaming rigs to the rack.

In an on-stage presentation, Jules Urbach, founder and CEO of Otoy, showed multiple ATI graphics cards from multiple PCs working together to deliver a first-person shooter game over a wired connection to a client device. Otoy is a software company that helps deliver graphics content from a server farm to client devices, and is working with AMD on creating the HD graphics delivery technology.

"All of a sudden we are taking one of the world's most complicated games and we're putting it in a Web page. It's huge," Urbach said.

The server will be ready by the second half of the year. "All you need is an iPhone.... [or] a laptop to use it," AMD's Taylor said.

AMD is fitting the graphics delivery technology into the cloud computing model, where programs are hosted on servers and delivered to consumers over a network. This technology is easily accessible and simple to use, Meyer said.

"Mobile computing is never going to be the same, and cloud computing really has the opportunity to open up new vistas both for the film and game industries," Meyer said.

"Now we're poised for a great leap forward in visual computing as well as mobile computing," he said.

Known for his processor innovations, Meyer did not talk about CPUs, instead trying to focus on AMD's attempts to add realism to gaming and entertainment on PCs.

"I promised I wouldn't reference Moore's Law during the presentation, and I didn't," Meyer said.

from : pcworld.com

The Ultimate Laptop to Replace a Desktop: What We Want

Danny Allen, PC World

What would the ultimate full-size laptop need to include to convince you to ditch your desktop for good? Our dual-screen laptop concept merges some of the best tech from Apple, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Toshiba, and others, along with some old-fashioned "if only" whimsy. Read on for the full parts list, and let us know what you think.

TWIN, SLIDING SCREENS: These bright, glossy-coated, OLED wide screens support hover and
HP TouchSmart PC-style multitouch input; plus full high-def. The left display slides across and closes over the right screen to pack down. Tilt and swivel adjustments are also possible. Back in the real world: Lenovo just announced its ThinkPad W700ds laptop, a desktop replacement with a 17-inch primary display, plus a 10.6-inch secondary screen.

KEYBOARD AND TOUCH SCREEN: An Optimus Maximus-style keyboard (each key has programmable OLED displays; pictured) is paired with an Apple-inspired full-width, multitouch, pressure-sensitive glass screen for the touchpad, widgets, and more. The keyboard and screen can also be removed to sit on your desk or even swap positions.

INSIDE: Intel's mobile Core i7 CPUs should hit in early 2009; its next-gen "Calpella" platform is expected by year's end.

DUAL WEBCAMS: Able to support multiparty, HD-capable video chat, and optimized for low-light situations.

SPEAKERS: Harman/Kardon stereo speakers with underside subwoofer--like those found in Toshiba's Qosmio notebooks. We'd also take the SLI graphics, HDMI port and S/PDIF interface from recent Qosmio models, such as the X305.

BLU-RAY SLOT DRIVE: Able to burn BD-R and BD-RE discs at 8X;supports DVD±RW, too.

source : Pc world.com

Intel Core i7 Desktops Dominate PC Charts

Danny Allen, PC World

ntel's new quad-core Core i7 processors were only launched in late November, but desktop systems featuring the CPUs--from the likes of Dell, Falcon Northwest, Micro Express, and others--have already made an impact on PC World's Top 10 charts.

As explained in "Getting to the Core of Intel's New Core i7 CPUs," these new processors are the company's first to be based on its long-previewed "Nehalem" architecture. The Core i7 family doesn't just mean new CPUs, they use a new chipset, a new system bus, and a new socket structure; Intel's first major technology jump since mid-2006, when Core 2 CPUs showed up on the scene.

Mainstream Desktops

Three of the six PCs to debut in our newly refreshed Top 10 Power Desktop chart boast Core i7. The Micro Express MicroFlex 92B (our Best Buy) and our fourth-ranked Dell Studio XPS use the midrange 2.93-GHz Core i7 940 CPU, which costs about $580 on its own. Though both machines are competitively priced at less than $2000 (without monitor), each returned performance results only just behind the fastest system we've seen in the category: Poly

well's $3950 Poly X4800-Extreme (ranked fifth). That system's 3.2-GHz X9770 processor, 4GB of speedy DDR3-1625 RAM, and two 10,000-rpm VelociRaptor hard drives (in a RAID 0 configuration) propelled it to a WorldBench 6 result of 141. By comparison, the Micro Express (3GB of DDR3-1333 RAM) and Dell (6GB of DDR3-1066 RAM) achieved WorldBench 6 performance scores of 138 and 136, respectively. Not too shabby at all. Polywell's newer, Core i7-equipped Poly X5800i desktop currently ranks 8th on our Power Desktop chart.

Gaming Desktops

Meanwhile, the Best Buy on our new Top 5 Gaming PCs chart goes to Falcon Northwest's Mach V. Equipped with a high-end 3.2-GHz Core i7 Extreme 965 processor (about $1050 on its own) that's been overclocked to 3.8-GHz, a whopping 12GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, and two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphic boards, the Mach V prevailed in almost every graphics test we threw at it. Even so, both the Xi MTower HAF-SLI and the Hardcore Computer Reactor (which rank second and fifth, respectively, on the chart) equaled the Mach V's record WorldBench 6 result of 163.

More On The Way

We're also in the midst of testing more Core i7 desktops. Reviews and benchmark results of systems from Gateway, Alienware, iBuyPower, CyberPower and AVA Direct will be featured on our Desktops Product Center over the next few weeks.

And just to keep things interesting, reports suggest that AMD's upcoming Phenom II CPUs--and desktops with them--could arrive as soon as early January. Like you, we're looking forward to see how they might compare.

New Quad-Core AMD and Intel Chips Surface

Computer chip makers Intel and AMD are ending 2008 with a quad-core bang. Intel has a new mobile processor - the Intel Core 2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 - that is being hyped by Acer in its just announced Acer laptop. AMD reportedly already has its upcoming Phenom II processors popping up online for pre-orders to consumers. The catch, neither AMD or Intel have made official announcements about either chips - yet.

The Intel Core 2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 is at the heart of Acer's new Aspire 8930G-7665 notebook PC. This latest quad core processor is running inside this laptop with 12MB of shared L2 cache, a 1066 MHz front side bus and a clock speed rate upwards of 2.53 GHz.

The Acer notebook, besides the Q9000 processor, has respectable features such as an 18.4-inch LCD, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT graphics set and a 500GB SATA hard drive. The 8930G-7665 is said to be available now for around $1,800.

Intel, besides putting forth the Q9000, is also said to have released four other mobile processors. This comes as AMD is getting ready to publicly debut its new quad-core Phenom II processors at the 2f009 Consumer Electronics Show. The new AMD processor, which some retailers already have available for pre-orders, will run at speeds up to 3GHz and includes an 8MB cache.

from : Nino Marchetti, PC World.com

Acer Launches Laptop With Intel's Quad-core Chip

Agam Shah, IDG News Service

Acer on Monday launched a powerful quad-core laptop at a price that may appeal to buyers on a budget.

The company's Aspire 8930G-7665 laptop is designed as a gaming laptop or desktop replacement. The laptop is powered by Intel's Core 2 Quad mobile processor with four cores that runs at up to 2.53GHz and includes 12MB of cache, according to Acer.

With a starting price of US$1,799, Acer's laptop could be a bargain compared to expensive quad-core laptops from the world's top PC vendors. Hewlett-Packard and Dell both offer quad-core laptops as either gaming laptops or mobile workstations with prices starting at over $2,000. Acer is the world's third-largest PC vendor behind HP and Dell, according to analyst firm IDC.

The laptop includes an 18.4-inch screen that can display high-definition images and video. It also includes 4GB of RAM, Nvidia's GeForce 9700M GT graphics card with 512MB of video memory, a 500GB hard drive, a Blu-ray Disc drive and Wi-Fi wireless networking. It comes preloaded with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Premium OS.

The laptop is now available in the U.S. through retailers, the company said. Acer could not be immediately reached for comment on worldwide availability.

source: pcworld.com

Intel Releases Quad-core Notebook Processor

Dan Moren, Macworld.com

The problem with computer chips? You can't run just one, these days. Seems like everything's got multiple chips or dual cores-it's enough to make your head spin. The current king of the heap for the Mac is, naturally, the Mac Pro, boasting your choice of one or two quad-core Intel Xeon chips.

And, as legally obligated by that Moore fellow, processor companies continue to release new chips like clockwork (Get it? Because processors have clock spe-oh, never mind). Intel's newest line, quietly unveiled this week, features five new mobile processors, including one quad-core model. In fact, PC maker Acer has already gone ahead and released their first notebook with the new Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000, running at 2.0GHz (pictured). With an 18.4-inch screen, the $1,799 Acer Aspire 8930G-7665-and won't that be on the tip of the tongue of every kid this year-is classed as a gaming rig and desktop replacement.

Among the other chips in Intel's new mobile line are the 2.93GHz T9800, the 2.66GHz P9600 Core 2 Duo, the 2.66GHz T9550, and the 2.53GHz P8700. The chips range in price from $241 to $530.

Intel is, of course, Apple's exclusive chip supplier, so there's a pretty good chance that some of these powerhouses will make it into Apple's portable line before too long. With its four cores, it seems likely that the Q9000 would be destined for the 17-inch MacBook Pro, but the other chips of the line could be candidates for the rest of the MacBook series as 2009 rolls around.

What 2009 May Bring for All Things Google

Google Subnet, NetworkWorld

As 2008 comes to a close, the bloggers of Google Subnet put aside the champagne (for just a minute) to look ahead to 2009 and what it may bring for all things Google. Here are our top five predictions for Google in the coming year.

1. Android: No bang, no whimper

Android Angle's Mark Murphy predicts: In the smartphone market, Android will have a solid, if unspectacular, 2009. With a bunch of new devices and new carriers, Android will be shipped on several million new handsets, continuing its climb up the rankings. It will be perceived as the platform with the most momentum outside of iPhone, as Symbian slogs toward open source, Microsoft ambles toward Windows Mobile 7, Blackberry continues to fail to capture developer mindshare despite shipping a large number of devices, and nothing else makes much of a dent.

However, the comparison will be made to iPhone, rightly or wrongly, and Android will at best keep pace with Apple's mobile juggernaut in 2009.

2. Google goes legit with greentech

Enterprise Google's John Brandon predicts: No more grand announcements and solar roofs that only power a portion of their facility. Google will press the issue of green computing even further in 2009, expanding its fleet of hybrid cars for employee use from just a handful to a real fleet of rentals, reducing waste and reporting more specifics, and partnering with alternative energy companies.

3. Privacy advocates gain concessions

Google subnet predicts: Google will keep getting hit on the privacy issue throughout 2009, and it will eventually make some key concessions. This won't amount to a major about-face, but instead will be more on the order of a me-too with Yahoo's three-month data-retention rule and probably an opt-out button for Google Chrome users who don't wish to send each and every keystroke back to Google.

4. Google buys something, but not Twitter or Facebook

Google subnet predicts: While the blogosphere continues to bandy about the idea of Google buying one or both of these key social media sites, Google is more likely to go the partnering route in this space. Instead, Google will look to buy its way into the enterprise realm. Taking into account the poor economy, it may just be able to snatch up a virtual management software start-up or services firm at a bargain price.

5. YouTube still can't make money

And Google subnet's final prediction? Google keeps trying throughout 2009 to squeeze some real revenue from YouTube, all to no avail. While the site continues to rack up huge numbers in terms of visitors and page views, its primary audience remains the under-18 crowd, which just doesn't have the deep pockets to support a strong business model.

Well, that's just a few of our predictions for 2009. Google Subnet is off for the New Year's holiday, returning Jan. 2, when we'll see if our predictions turn into reality as the new year unfolds. Until then, we wish you all a Happy New Year!

source: pcworld.com