Hardware Extreme heeft een artikel genaamd Why Intel (KNI) will beat AMD (K7) met een vergelijking tussen KNI en 3DNow:

"Another fact is that KNI definitely will beat 3DNow. One advantage of Intel is that they (of course!) have examined K6-2 processors with 3DNow and fully know its good and weak points. AMD, Cyrix and WinChip were the first to introduce new instructions to the x86 line, which was always dominated by Intel. Although 3DNow is getting more and more supported, it is absolutely no standard to game developers. It would be if hardware producers would give more support to 3DNow. Until now the Matrox G200 is the only graphic card that does that. Although 3DNow will be almost a year more on the market when KNI launches, the 3D market is still open and not dominated..."

Warzone heeft een review van de Canopus Spectra 2500.

Hier ff wat stuff wat ze over die TNT kaart te melden hebben:

There are a few TNT cards out there but none with the options and design of the Spectra. The reverse pass-through of the card performed flawlessly and provided the ability to play any game (Glide, OpenGL, Direct3D) on a big screen TV with a combination of the Spectra and any Voodoo 2 card. The quick control feature really eases the hassle of adjusting picture image without quitting your current game or application. While a tag of $199 without a bundle does seem a little steep, Canopus does provide great performance with unique features that really make this card stand out among the pack. If you’re looking for great 2D and 3D performance, go with a TNT card. If you want the Ferrari of the TNT cards with all the extras, go with the Canopus Spectra 2500.

Gamer's Alliance heeft een review van WWII Fighters.

Hier wat info over de visuals:

This is one beautiful game! WWII Fighters has some of the most beautiful graphics of any sim I’ve ever seen. The cockpits are total 3D, which means no static 2D cockpits at all. This is fine, because the cockpits are incredibly detailed and beautiful, all the way down to the small warning panels above the dials, which can be easily read. The 3D cockpits and the interiors of the planes are gorgeous.

Once you start looking outside of your plane, however, your jaw will just drop. The graphics are so good that they were used in most of the opening cut scene… and you’d never know those were in-game graphics. The plane’s models are incredibly detailed, and have wonderful touches like squadron decals and realistic paint schemes. The control surfaces are fully visible and your guns spit out shells, among many other nice touches. Even ground vehicles and buildings are quite lovely, having levels of graphical detail rarely seen before…and they blow up real good. Explosions in this game are actually quite gorgeous, as flame and smoke spew out from your victims in a realistic and beautiful fashion, and they are probably the best explosions I’ve ever seen.

Nog wat rotte Apples op The Register:

Leaks from Apple's Beta programme suggest the next version of the MacOS, 8.6, codenamed Veronica, will mark the company's first attempt to align its existing operating system with the forthcoming MacOS X and implement its confused OS strategy.

The plan runs something like this: next Autumn (if the schedule is met), Apple will ship its Unix-derived MacOS X to users of Macs based on the PowerPC 750 (aka G3). To keep users of older Power Macs sweet, the company has said will continue to extend and offer the MacOS 8.x/9.x line, at the same time cobbling on bits of MacOS X to ensure application developers have enough of a unified base to support both groups of users.

The obvious thing to do would be to make MacOS X available to the MacOS 8.x hangers-on and just have done with it. Even then Apple would have two operating systems -- MacOS X and MacOS X Server, aka Rhapsody -- but why stick with two when you can have three and really confuse people.

Given MacOS X is designed to be easy to port to other platforms, adding PowerPC 601, 603e and 604/604e versions to the installer shouldn't be too much of a problem.

But Apple clearly thinks otherwise, and it's hard not to conclude that it wants to ensure everyone rushes out and buys a new box just to run the new OS.

As for MacOS 8.6, its MacOS X-like features include a microkernel (sort of -- its called a 'nanokernel'). The nanokernel is described by sources as a cut-down version of the Mach kernel used by MacOS X. It will provide MacOS 8.6 with better multitasking and memory protection, and a degree of device abstraction.

Vernonica, due to ship next spring, will also add new interface tweaks to bring the current MacOS look and feel more in line with the NeXT/MacOS hybrid GUI that MacOS X will present. Both OS' implementations of Java will be aligned too.

Apple heeft een nieuwe iMac met 300Mhz G3 in de maak, volgens dit artikel van The Register:

Apple is preparing the next revision of its consumer-oriented iMac, the third so far, according to sources close to the company.

The so-called Revision C box will add a faster CPU -- the smart money seems to be on a 300MHz PowerPC 750, though just to be safe, there is also talk of a 266MHz version. It will be announced officially next month and ship in February.

The first revision, Rev B, shipped back in November, adding an extra 4MB of video memory to the original 2MB, upgrading the graphics controller from the clunky ATI Rage IIc to the Rage Pro Turbo and bundling the then recently released MacOS 8.5.

Tresh's FiringSquad heeft een artikel in elkaar weten te draaien met wat spul over AMD en Intel. Er zit ook wat info bij over de AMD K7:

Please, just shoot me now. I've heard all the hype surrounding the K7, and while it certainly looks good, it's not the first time an Intel-killer has been announced. Look at the original K6. Back before release, it was slated to be a powerhouse competitor to the Pentium Pro, but by the time it was released, Intel had enough time to push ahead with its Pentium II line, quickly making the K6 a non-factor.

[blablalba]

Going back to the K7, let's take a look at the details. The L2 cache is going to be integrated into the CPU cartridge, running at 1/3 or œ CPU speed. At 1/3 speed, that's slower than the 200Mhz bus. At œ speed, the cache is faster than the system bus, making much of that speed increase irrelevant (look at the lackluster performance increase for Pentium II moving from 66mhz to a 100Mhz FSB). At 1/3 speed for 500Mhz, the cache is slower than the bus anyway, so what's the point? While the K7 may appear strong on paper (and indeed in tests), the momentum is with Intel, who's pushing the limits with the upcoming 133Mhz Camino chipset and Rambus RDRAM.

MPOG heeft een review in elkaar gedraaid met een vergelijking tussen de Diamond MX300 en Creative SBLive. De MX300 krijgt er 5 sterren en de SBLive maar 2! Waarom:

EAX will generate simulated 3D sound on a 2-speaker system quite nicely, but when you add the extra pair of rear speakers into the equation, you are left with a gimmicky 3D sound configuration utility to create your "4 channel 3D sound". I was shocked to see a list of dozens of game titles with prefab sound settings. While the list was very complete and included just about every game you would ever play with 3D sound, the thought of having to pick a sound configuration before starting each game was ludicrous. Then I noticed that all these configuration files were doing was arranging sound effects in one channel and music in the other. You could even arrange these various sound elements yourself and create your own custom configurations using a diagram of a room with a sofa in the middle. Then entire process was very primitive and simply not true 3D.

But never fear. Diamond was quickly working with Aureal and their new Vortex2, and the result was the Diamond Monster MX300 offering a lengthy line-up of impressive features. Not only does the MX300 give you great A3D surround sound, you also get built-in support for Dolby Digital for DVD movies and games, MIDI, and MP3 support. Overnight, Diamond has released a card that blows the Sound Blaster Live! card out of the water.

PC Magazine heeft een review van BeOS Release 4.

Hier wat spul:

Be is ambitious about getting its system onto x86 desktops and has made great strides in hardware support. We were able to install to and boot from a SCSI Iomega Jaz Drive, and we were able to use a SCSI Iomega Zip Drive for external storage. Be has expanded the list of video, sound, and network cards compatible with R4, and has started on the path to laptop support with new NeoMagic video and PCMCIA network drivers. The system supports a number of the most popular video-capture and TV-tuner cards as well. Be has laid the foundation for USB support, which will be enhanced in future versions. IDE, ATA, and ATAPI drives now enjoy performance improvements, and printer support has been expanded. See the official Hardware Ready List for details.

We were impressed that R4 gave us full read/write access to FAT32 volumes mounted on the same machine, whereas not even Windows NT 4 can see FAT32 Windows 98 volumes. The system also includes an improved network stack, a better PPP implementation, and native support for DHCP address configuration. A client for Microsoft Networks will become available in R4.1.

Tresh's Firinsquad heeft een review van de Diamond MX300.

Hier wat A3D stuff:

Before I get into how all of this effects our games, I'd like mention how A3D 2.0 compares to the Creative SBLive!'s EAX sound API. EAX is also about simulating environmental effects on sound. However, where A3D 2.0 actually calculates the sound waves via wavetracing and using the 3D level geometry, EAX relies on canned presets and variables. For example, instead of passing in the geometry of a room to A3D 2.0, you would simply approximate the geometry by picking an EAX preset that's close, or adjusting EAX parameters. This is quite a bit easier to implement since it's less work for developers. However, it does not take into account real reflections, occlusions, or other subtleties of how a level would affect the sound.

On to the good stuff. A3D 2.0 is great in theory, but how does it sound in real games? Although there are a couple dozen A3D and DirectSound games on the market in which you are guaranteed to get very good 3D sound positioning effects with the MX300, there are only three A3D 2.0 games currently available. Those three games are Half-Life, Motorhead, and Recoil (included with the MX300). Technically, Motorhead hasn't been released in the US yet, but owners of certain video cards and steering wheels do have access to a copy of this great game. You will need to install the latest 2.2 patch, which enables both A3D 1.x and A3D 2.0 support. The really good news is that Half-Life supports A3D 2.0 out of the box with no patches at all. Honestly, you couldn't wish for a bigger showcase title to show off an advanced audio API-Half-Life is easily a contender for game of the year.

Once you've fired up Half-Life or Motorhead (with patch) and enabled A3D 2.0, you're in for a real treat. (I must admit I didn't bother to test Recoil, since I played the demo and was unimpressed). The best way to describe the effect is that all of the sounds in the games become much more dynamic. Rather than having a bunch of 3D sound sources hanging in space, you'll now notice that as you move through the level, all of the sounds are constantly changing depending on where they are, where you are, and what's in the level.

For example, driving into a tunnel is a dramatic experience with A3D 2.0-you can hear the tunnel approach, and the sound rapidly compresses as you enter. The effect is subtle, but very gratifying. With A3D 1.x in use, the tunnel becomes a simple filter which you can clearly hear turn on as you enter and turn off as you exit. Under A3D 2.0, the change is much more subtle and pleasing. Similarly, I noticed that when there was a wall on the right side of the track, I could hear more engine echo on that specific side of the track as I roared by.

Fastgraphics heeft een big-ass CPU Roadmap online gepleurt. Hierin staat alle info over toekomstige processors van Intel, AMD, Cyrix en IDT. Erg handig.

Ik zag op Overclockers.com wat info over de PII-300, PII-333 en C300A:

PC Nut is confirming that PII300s are about extinct - no new supply; inventory is low and limited, so if you want one you will pay a premium. C300a's are now best bet for overclocking to 450, but newer chips are failing at about a 25% rate, so pre-tested buying may be the only way to go. I am collecting data on c300a's and hope to have it up soon.

As for PII333s, I am getting news from ASETEK (Danish company selling super-cooling cases) that SL2QH week 39 is running 560 out of the box. This is a stepping 1 version and I am surprised at its performance. I can only urge that if you can try these out before buying, you may get a nice surprise.

Storage Review heeft een review van Maxtor's DiamondMax 4320 drive.

Een stukje:

owards the beginning of October, the Storage Review took a look at the DiamondMax 4320. Just like it's 7200rpm brother, the DiamondMax Plus 2500, we found the 4320 to be at the top of its class. Only a couple weeks later, we (finally) posted our review of the Quantum Fireball EX, finding that the drive gave even the Plus 2500 a run for its money. Finally, rumbles can be heard from Western Digital, who, for the first time in a while, mentioned comparative performance in the press release for the Caviar AC313000.

Since our original review, Maxtor has tweaked the 4320 a bit and claims that the figures posted in our original evaluation do not accurately represent the drives being shipped to users. Physical specifications have been held constant, implying that the optimizations are electronic/firmware in nature.

As we can see from the tables below, the modifications yield WinBench 98 figures between four and ten percent greater than the "pre-production evaluation unit" tested earlier. The 4320 now runs neck-to-neck with and in some cases even surpasses both the Fireball EX and Plus 2500. NT ThreadMark results remained the same. Curiously, however, ThreadMark results under Windows 95 actually regressed, dropping nearly 10%.

ZDNet heeft een artikel gepost over Anand's K6-2 review. Ze beschuldigen Anand ervan dat-ie pro-AMD is. Vreemd, want 2 week geleden was-nog een 'AMD basher'. Het is ook nooit goed.

Hier is het artikel:

Codenamed "Sharptooth," the chip is expected to be released in January. While most of the details of Sharptooth are public, AnandTech was the first site to publish benchmarks of the coming processor.

"It looks like Anand has an OEM source that is feeding him these chips," said Tom Kehoe, an AMD (NYSE:AMD) spokesman. Kehoe would not comment on the accuracy of the benchmarks shown on the page, but said the release caused some consternation at the Sunnyvale, Calif. company.

Anand Lal Shimpi -- the 16-year-old high-school student who runs AnandTech -- confirmed that the chip was sent to him by a PC maker. The review of the chip has netted the junior over 300,000 hits in the past 12 hours.

Topping the charts

If the benchmarks are accurate, AMD rival Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC) could be in for a rough year. In the AnandTech review, an engineering sample of the 450MHz K6-3 topped the charts, outperforming Intel's 450MHz Pentium II and a Celeron A running at 450MHz.

How did AMD soup up Sharptooth? By adding a 256KB cache directly to the processor, similar to the tactic Intel used to turn its Celeron processor from an underdog to a top performer. In Intel's case, the company only added 128KB of secondary memory, but it still boosted performance by 20 to 30 percent in most applications.

According to AnandTech's tests, the K6-3 out performed a Pentium II operating at the same clock speed by as much as 12 percent, always beating out Intel's processors.

Chip analyst Dean McCarron of Mercury Research Inc. thought that the review could easily be legit. "Those numbers are not surprising, given some of the focuses that AMD has been working on," he said. However, McCarron was quick to point out that, even if the benchmarks are reasonable, AnandTech could easily have made up the numbers. "I don't think he did," said McCarron, "but that is always a possibility."

One-sided review?

Still, the review lacks some key benchmarks. In fact, all the tests played to AMD's strengths in business applications or 3DNow optimized games. While AMD insists that the company had nothing to do with the reviews, the lack of standard Winbench 3-D and 3-D rendering tests, which frequently favor Intel's processors, makes for a glaring omission.

AMD (Nyse)

Anand said any bias was unintended, and that in fact, more strict CPU tests would be posted on his sight soon.

To be fair, since the chip tested is so-called "alpha" silicon -- that is, a pre-product -- the actual K6-3 chips that will come out in January could perform much better. "The difference between alpha silicon and final silicon is sometimes as great as 2x," said Mercury's McCarron.

Neither AMD nor McCarron thought that would be the case this time around, and Anand estimated that his benchmarks would be right on. "To the best of my knowledge, the primary difference between this sample and the actual product will only be stability," he said.

Still, it does look as though AMD has an early start on next year's competition.

Avault heeft een review van Diamond's portable MP3 player:

Disconnect the Rio from your computer, plug in the included earphones (or your own set, if you prefer) and you're set for music-on-the-go. Controls are available for volume (in discrete steps from 0 to 20), next track, previous track, play/pause, and stop. A random button puts it in shuffle mode, playing the tracks in random order. A repeat button does just that; plays a single track over and over. An A--B button allows a section of music to be repeated over and over. The LCD display has track information, as well as a battery meter and the encode rate of the currently played track. An EQ button toggles between four preset equalization settings (Rock, Normal, Classic, and Jazz) which is also shown on the LCD display. Finally, an Intro button plays the first few seconds from each track in memory.

Hardware.Pairnet heeft een review van een 233Mhz WinChip.

Kan me niet voorstellen dat je daar afgezien van gebruik in een tikdoos wat zinnigs mee kunt beginnen. Hier maar wat info:

IDT's WinChip 2 is a very promising economy CPU. The WinChip 2 fits older motherboards, yet offers excellent FPU, MMX, 3DNow, and integer performance. On the upgrade front, the WinChip 2 should make a lot of users very happy. Those looking to upgrade their old machine on the cheap should definitely consider the WinChip 2 as a solid game and application supercharger.

Overall, the WinChip 2 is a very admirable CPU for any computer system. In fact, my only complaint with the IDT WinChip 2 is the low clock speed. AMD and Intel are selling 400 MHz and faster chips at prices that most people can afford, and both AMD and Intel have even faster chips just over the horizon. At the time of this writing, I can easily purchase a 400 MHz K6-2 over the Internet for under US$200. It would be very hard for me to justify purchasing anything slower than a 400 MHz chip now that prices for actually within reach. Until IDT can ship a 400 MHz chip, it is going to be very difficult for IDT to grab any sizable share of the market. Once IDT switches to the .25 micron FAB, IDT should be able to release 300-400 MHz chips. At that point in time, IDT will become a noticable force in the low cost home PC and entry level OEM markets.

Ik zag op Coolinfo wat info over nieuwe Zip drives met USB (handig om een iMac te de-isoleren) :

Despite stiffening competition, Iomega's Zip drive is still top dog in the world of 100MB or larger superfloppy backup drives. With competitors such as Caleb, Imation, Samsung, Sony, and Teac crowding into the market, Iomega has reason to worry. But while most of the other companies are developing and launching their first products, Iomega is already releasing second-generation models: the new 250MB Zip 250 and 100MB Zip USB drives. I evaluated shipping versions of each, with a Gateway GX 450-XL test PC. (The Zip 250 comes in both parallel-port and SCSI versions; I tested the SCSI model.) Both new drives have a nifty, modern look: The Zip USB is encased in translucent blue plastic; the Zip 250's opaque blue case is attractively sculpted.

A USB Dream

Using the $150 Zip USB is an unmitigated pleasure. Plug in the power cord and the cable, and as with other Universal Serial Bus peripherals, Windows 98 automatically recognizes the device. Unplug it, and Windows knows the drive is gone--without having to reboot your PC. The bundled software installs in minutes, including the necessary Win 98 drivers. You may be tempted by the Zip USB drive's hot-pluggable convenience alone, but its stunning performance will close the deal. It took only a bit more than 2 minutes each way to copy about 80MB of files from hard drive to Zip disk and back. For comparison, a standard 100MB parallel port model takes more than 9 minutes each way. The Zip USB outpaced the SCSI Zip 250 slightly on the transfer to disk, although the SCSI device cut 30 seconds off the transfer to hard drive.

Anand heeft een review geupt van Kryotech's extreem koele koelsysteempie met K6-2 500.

Hier een stukkie:

At a price of $1695 for the motherboard, CPU, case, and cooling system, the Cool K6-2 is a bit steep considering the performance it offers over a readily available and comparatively cheap K6-2 400 mb/cpu/case combo.  With many users already able to overclock their K6-2 400's to 450MHz without using Kryotech's cooling system, the extra 5% performance boost isn't really worth the money; and in that respect, the Kryotech Cool K6-2 500 is in fact, too little, too late.  Had the system been released at 500MHz back in May of 1998 when it was announced at E3, things might have been different, however with the price of a Celeron 300A at under $100, and with the price of a K6-2 400 quickly approaching the $200 mark, the Cool K6-2 just isn't worth it now.

Is the system a failure?  Absolutely not.   Kryotech's Cool K6-2 is an example of what can be done, and as a glimpse at the future of Kryotech, AnandTech decided to tear out the K6-2 400 CPU that was installed in the system and replace it with a K6-3 to see how well AMD's forthcoming chip would operate at -40 degrees Celsius.  

AseTek heeft een paar benchmarks online gepleurt met een vergelijking tussen hun koelsysteempie en die van Kryotech:

Ik zag op de Heatsink Guide wat info over Intel die waarschijnlijk alleen nog maar boxed CPU's gaat bakken (en OEM's alleen voor grote afnemers):

Another rumor I caught: Intel plans to sell only boxed CPUs in the near future. The heatsinkless "OEM" CPU will then be reserved to the major system integrators like Compaq, Dell, Acer, etc. As soon as March/April '99, only boxed SECC2 CPUs might be available through "official" channels. Supposedly, AMD will be doing the same with the K7.

In my opinion, this is bad for everyone, and especially for overclockers, since the heatsinks Intel supplies with the boxed CPUs are not very efficient. Let's hope that enough "grey-market" OEM CPUs will make it on the market, so that overclockers can chose these, if they have the choice. Generally, the impact of Intel's move on the heatsink market will be significant.

Dat suckt natuurlijk weer zwaar, maar geen probleem, want die standaard Intel heatsink is zo weg met de juiste schroevendraaier...