AMD verlaagt de prijzen van z'n K6-tweetjes als reactie op eerdere prijsverlagingen van Intel. C|Net News.com heeft er wat nieuws over:

The chip-pricing limbo contest continued today as Advanced Micro Devices cut prices on its K6-2 processors by 10 percent to 24 percent in an effort to match accelerated discounts on Intel's Celeron chip announced earlier today.

The price war between the two companies has

AMD cuts K6-2 prices

Speed, in MHz

Old Price

New Price

% change

400

$157

$134

15

380

$133

$118

11

366

$122

$93

24

350

$97

$87

10

333

$84

$72

15

300

$73

$62

15

Source: AMD

dropped the bottom line cost of processors to historic lows. Under the new price regime, only two AMD processors sell for more than $100 in volume while only one Celeron, the 400-MHz version of the chip debuted last month, sells for above the $100 mark.

The rest of the Celeron line, which was invented in 1998 for the cheap PC market, sells for between $93 and $63. Historically, Intel discontinued chips when they hit the $100 or $85 mark.

Zie dit artikel voor meer info...

CPU Review heeft voor de verandering geen cpu review, maar een first look van Redhat 5.2. Hier de intro:

t seems that you cannot open a magazine these days without seeing a story about Linux; it has experienced an avalanche of media coverage over the last year.

The clear leader (at least as far as brand recognition, and number of units shipped) in the Linux distribution is Red Hat Inc., whose latest release is "Redhat 5.2". It should be noted that Caldera, Suse, and others also ship Linux distributions, however this review is about RedHat's latest offering.

I have been running Linux since kernel version 0.10 - and I must say Linux has gotten immensely easier to install over the years.

Infoworld heeft wat info over toekomstige CPU's van Intel. Volgens plannen kunnen we volgend jaar een 800MHz server modelletje verwachten. Hier een stukje copy/paste over de PIII:

According to sources close to Intel, speeds for the Pentium III desktop chip will increase from 450 MHz and 500 MHz at launch on Feb. 26 to 733 MHz with a 133-MHz front-side bus by mid-2000.

Following the Pentium III mobile announcement this September and the addition of 0.18-micron technology, mobile processor speeds will top out at 600 MHz by the end of this year, then jump to 700 MHz in the first half of 2000. With speeds this fast, Intel intends to significantly close the power gap between desktop and notebook processors.

Meer info vind je hier.

Connectix heeft z'n eerste overwinning geboekt in de rechtszaak tegen Sony betreffende de Virtual GameStation (Playstation) emulator voor de Mac:

Sony yesterday failed to prevent Connectix from selling its Mac-based PlayStation emulator, Virtual GameStation (VGS), until questions over the software developer's alleged infringement of Sony intellectual property rights and copyrights have been answered.

Last week, Sony Computer Entertainment asked the Federal District Court of San Francisco to order Connectix to cease VGS shipments, release last week to mail order and retail channels as version 1.1. Version 1.0 was sold only by Connectix itself, and only during MacWorld Expo, held the first week of January.

However, the Court rejected Sony's demand, suggesting that the latter's case against Connectix is not (as yet) as strong as it might have hoped. Certainly, Connectix has insistently stated its innocence of the charges, and has denied claims that VGS encourages the piracy of PlayStation games software as vigorously.

Meer stuff vind je in dit artikel van The Register.

The Register heeft een nieuwsbericht over de vorderingen met fusie tussen Hyundai en LG Semicon:

Reports in the Korean press said today that the LG Semicon strikers in the peninsula have returned to work after they were given guarantees of two years' employment and a "special bonus" of six months payment.

That means that the merger is now likely to go ahead by next weekend, according to local English language newspaper The Korea Herald.

Yesterday, the striking workers agreed to go back to work after the payment and their continued employment was guaranteed.

Bob van Thresh's Firingsquad heeft een review van Simcity 3000 in elkaar geknutseld. Het doel van dit spelletje moge inmiddels bekend zijn. Een stukje uit de intro:

Close your eyes and imagine a game with no bloody violence, no high tech armored tanks to control, no vast armies to command, and no deer to shoot at. "How can such a game sell?" you ask. Well it's SimCity, that's how! SimCity is a one of the few games that transcends age, gender, and "twitch" ability. It's something that anyone can enjoy, not just people with a T-1 and the talent to pull a 180 degree turn and shoot a rocket into someone out of midair [/me looks at Thresh]. When SimCity came out over 10 years ago, it was an instant classic because the idea of building and running an entire city appeals to anybody of any age. I've even heard of city planning classes using the program as a tool to teach students about some of the aspects of running a city and implications of certain political decisions. A few years ago, SimCity 2000 came out, and it built upon the foundation of the original simulation classic, and added a lot more features and aspects to worry about. There were a lot more choices for power sources, and the player also had to worry about piping water into the city, among other things. SimCity 3000 builds upon that by showing cities that seem alive with detailed animations and 3D sound.

AMD gaat een kleine naamsverandering doorvoeren in de naam van de K6-3. Het ding wordt voortaan geschreven met Romeinse cijfers, dus K6-III. Uiteraard met de bedoeling een direkte vergelijking te trekken met de PIII van Intel. Hier wat info van The Register:

Sources close to AMD in Japan told The Register today that the K6-3 is to be called the K6-III, using Roman numerals.

But that is likely to spur Intel to fury, given that it insisted AMD did not call the K6-2 the K6-II, a suggestion to which AMD agreed.

At the same time, dealer selling prices of AMD parts showed that the smaller chip player was ready and willing to take on Intel at its pricing game.

From this morning, the K6-2/300 will cost $65, the K6-2/333 $75, the K6-2/350 $90, the K6-2/366 $96, the K6-2/380 $123, the K6-2/400 $138 and the K6-2/450, now officially launched, $210.

An AMD UK representative said the name had not changed, just the way the number was written. But it is now obvious that the battle between both AMD and Intel is on with a vengeance, with the K6-III aimed squarely at the Pentium III.

Het volk bij Planet Hardware heeft een review van de Card Cooler, een dingetje met twee ventilators waarmee je je pci/agp/isa kaarten kunt koelen. Het idee is erg simpel:

he idea behind the Card Cooler is actually very simple, just attach two standard 12 volt case fans together to custom metal holders, and that's that! The way the Card Cooler is made, it's meant to cool multiple boards at once, not just one hot graphics board. Some graphics cooling units made you remove current heatsinks or fans to attach a larger cooling device, therefor voiding the warranty on that particular graphics board, which of course the Card Cooler does not, since the Card Cooler doesn't make contact with the board itself.

Hier heb je een plaatje:

Zoiets moet zonder al te veel moeite eigenhandig in elkaar te geklooid moeten kunnen worden, lijkt me.

Crus heeft een review gepost van de Abit Merlin G740 videokaart. Grappige naam (zo heet m'n broertje ). Het ding is gebaseerd op de Intel i740, dus wat betreft de performance hoef je geen miracles te verwachten:

nd infact the intention was never to break any speed records, and it doesn't, but this isn't really important when it comes to a chip that has a retail price of less than $40 (board equipped with 8Mb SDRAM). But what the Intel i740 does offer is stable, well-supported and fully acceptable 3D support both through Microsofts API D3D and through a full OpenGL ICD, and it does it good.

Onze helden van Abit hebben een nieuwe BIOS gebakken voor de holy BH6 overklokplank. Hier de info van Abit's site:

BH6

Filename: BH6JJ.EXE

Date: 02/08/1999

ID: JJ

NOTE:

- Supports Socket 370 Celeron 433 MHz CPU

- Supports correct naming of Pentium III CPU.

Je hebt AWDFlash v6.6 nodig om het ding te kunnen flashen.

Rivazone heeft een regeltje info over de release van de Riva TNT-2:

A non-NVIDIA source has informed me that the TNT-2 will be displayed at CeBIT. Shipping dates for cards based on this new version of the TNT should begin in April 1999, with the first reportedly coming from Creative and Diamond. Thanks to Marc from Hardware.fr for that bit of info. We'll attempt confirmation with NVIDIA on this.

De performance van de Rise mP6 chip, bedoeld voor gebruik in notebooks, valt tegen. Hier wat info uit een artikel op The Register:

Details leaked from Rise Technology demonstrate that its mP6-266 chip is not as fast as first hoped.

This will come to a disappointment to PC mobile manufacturers which had hoped to incorporate the chip into their systems.

According to test results we have already seen, the Rise core is something of an underperformer at CPU Mark 522, using the Winbench98 test. The FPU mark in the same test amounts to 688.

3D Hardware.net heeft een preview van de 3Dfx Voodoo3 in elkaar gedraaid. Hier een stukje over SLI op een V3 (wat dus niet kan):

No, no and again no. 3Dfx made one of the smartest moves I’ve seen so far by pushing SLI for the Voodoo 2 (it was possible with the Voodoo 1 you know...) So why can’t they do it again? Well, Tony didn’t give us any definitive answer about whether there will be any SLI possibilities with the V3, but all in all, i got the impression it’s not going to happen.

Or as he expressed it after i asked him whether Quantum 3D (which will receive V3’s) maybe could manage constructing an SLI V3:

nVidia heeft nieuwe reference drivers gereleased voor de Riva TNT. Volgens nVidia kunnen de 'Detonator' drivers voor een performance boost van 30% zorgen in D3D en OpenGL games. Ik ben nog geen benchmarks tegen gekomen met de nieuwe drivers, maar een snelheidstoename van 30% lijkt me onwaarschijnlijk.

Hier heb je de info uit de press release van nVidia:

"The Detonator drivers are one more example of NVIDIA's relentless execution," said Mike Harrington, director of development at Valve Software L.L.C. "Half-Life frame rates in Direct3D jumped 30 percent at 1024x768 when we tested the new drivers."

"The software team at NVIDIA is always tuning their drivers for more performance," said Tim Sweeney, chairman and founder at Epic Games, Inc. "Detonator is a perfect example of NVIDIA's ability to deliver more performance every time you turn around. Unreal D3D is much smoother at high resolutions with the Detonator drivers."

NVIDIA Detonator Optimized for next-generation CPUs, DirectX 6.0 and OpenGL, NVIDIA’s Detonator software provides the highest performance and quality for RIVA TNT-based PC products. In addition to performance enhancements, the Detonator software improves overall stability and is designed to be forward compatible with future NVIDIA processors. Windows 2000-ready, NVIDIA’s Detonator software is available now at www.nvidia.com.

Download sites (bij onze oosterburen):
- Win95/98 PCI: server 1 / server2
- Win95/98 AGP: server 1 / server2
WinNT: server1 / server2.

De Unified driver (met installer) kun je hier halen.

Appel zit al een tijdje te patsen dat hun computertjes zo goed Y2K compatible zijn, maar zoals gewoonlijk is de Apple weer rot. Zie dit Techweb artikel voor info:

The Apple Macintosh platform may not be year 2000 compliant after all -- according to a Toronto software company.

Pedagoguery, which makes a Y2K-testing tool for the Mac, issued a news release Thursday saying that software developers following Apple's programming documentation could unwittingly introduce a date problem into their Mac software.

The company said the belief that Macs were immune to the Y2K problem may have come from a statement on Apple's website referring to internally generated dates.

"An internally generated date is a date that was generated within a program -- a date that is read from a computer file is not an internally generated date," Pedagoguery said. So, "After the year 2000, most Mac applications will work correctly, as long as you don't open any files that contain dates."

Files containing dates could cause serious problems for applications written using the date routine supplied by the Mac OS, the company added. The supplied 'StringToDate' routine currently interprets '89' as 1989. Next year it will interpret '89' as 2089.

Haha!!! Weer een goede reden om Macs (en Mac gebruikers) of te zeiken! :D

Adrian heeft een review bepost van de Asus V3400TNT. Hier wat info over het ding:

While most other RIVA TNT cards only rely on a heatsink to dissipate the RIVA TNT's considerable heat output, ASUS chose to equip the V3400TNT with both a heatsink and a fan. Tthe heatsink only measures in 37mm x 37mm x 6mm but has 112 small fins. Stripping off the top fan, you can see the heatsink below. The fins are about 4.5mm tall each. The good thing about this heatsink is that it is attached by spring loaded plastic pins. To attach your own custom heatsink, you can just remove this heatsink by removing the pins from their attachment holes.

Nog meer stuff van AnandTech: een review van de Hercules Terminator Beast Supercharged. Het ding heeft een hoger geklokte Savage3D aan boord wat hem de snelste D3D kaart van dit moment maakt. Anand heeft wat benchmarks, alleen is-ie zo stom geweest om alleen te benchen onder Q2. De Savage3D heeft maar 1 TMU waardoor de performance onder QII vanzelfsprekend veel lager is dan een TNT. Het zou leuk zijn als Anand wat D3D benchmarks had ter vergelijking met een TNT.

Anyway, hier wat info over de drivers (die zijn/waren nogal gammel bij de Savage3D):

I wish I could say that the Terminator Beast drivers are top quality; however, they leave a lot to be desired. First of all, the OpenGL ICD is not nearly as optimized as offerings from nVidia and the likes. (the MiniGL does work well in OpenGL games, such as Quake2) Secondly, the Vsync-off tearing is still very evident. Don't expect to be able to play games with Vsync-off, it won't happen. As far as I could tell, the black textured problem (which happened in other Savage3D based solutions; where small objects which are far away from the viewer are black) had vanished; however, the Terminator's drivers had an annoying anomaly that whenever I closed a DOS window or quite a program such as Quake2, the screen flashed. Now these flashes don't detract from the performance of the board, and they don't give anyone seizures as far as I could tell; but they are an unnecessary nuisance. Also, Quake2 refused to run at 1024x768*32bit color, and Quake2 exited abruptly many times after a resolution change. D3D games, such as Forsaken, had no apparent problems.

Ace's Hardware heeft een interview met AMD gepost. Er zit wat interesse info tussen over de AMD K7:

(OHC): Why is the K7 L2 now running with 1/3 divider, even as a sample? Is AMD having problems with stability? [What speed will the "final" K7 L2 run at?] 

Bob_AMD: The reason will be obvious once the K7 ships. It will not be a dissappointment to anyone, I promise. :o)  Things are going very smoothly, and you should not expect to see instabilities in a shipping K7 motherboard. Obviously we are hard at work on our prototypes to make sure we are able to deliver our 200MHz throughput boards with no stability problems.  The K7 bus rate will debut at 200MHz, and I don't believe that there will be slower BUS rates for it. 

Het was eigenlijk de bedoeling dat Russ vorige week z'n laatste Celery Report zou publiceren, maar wegens een overweldigende belangstelling heeft-ie er nog maar eentje tegenaan geplakt.

I know, I know, I said that last week was my final report. What can I say; I think I might be a hardcore Geek.

I got so many reports in of success with the new "retail" SL2WM processor, that I had to take a look for myself. For those who haven't heard, Intel began packaging the former OEM version of the CPU for retail sale. It comes in exactly the same box, with exactly the same documentation and the same attached fan. The original retail had the sSPEC code SL32A.

I also had an awful lot of disappointed people who got to the party a bit late; after I stopped taking orders for the combo. So, with a Herculean effort, I went in to the market place, scoured the Earth and managed to scrape up 60 processors. Ain't I a great guy?:-)

PC Techware heeft een vette socket7 TNT rally in elkaar gepleurd. Erg handig als je van plan bent om een TNT op een socket7 bord te gaan draaien.

De TNT kaarten die ze in de test hebben meegenomen zijn komen van Asus, Canopus, Creative Labs, Diamond, Elsa, Leadtek, Hercules en STB. Hier een stukje:

These 8 cards all ship with very safe default settings. The standard for the TNT-core / memory would be 90/110 MHz, with exception of the Creative GB TNT, which uses a slightly higher clock. (Like 92/115 or so), Dynamite TNTs with the newer drivers also ship with higher default settings. The TNT, however, allows higher clocking -- if you have a utility which allows that, that is. A popular utility for that is PowerStrip, by Entech Software. It allows by default core settings up to 115MHz and memory clock settings up to 133MHz and offers a "Fast Memory Timing" setting which is, one wouldnŽt believe it, a setting for faster memory timing. Duh. Similar to those "normal, fast, turbo" settings for your system RAM in your local BIOS.

Since itŽs a sin to let performance lie around unused, I had to see how high I could push each card. Of course, trading in system stability is no option, so I played it reasonable. Here how I did it.

Het volk bij CRUS (Computers 'R Us) heeft een chipset guide in elkaar gegooid. Het ding geeft info over allerlei chipsets, variërend van de middeleeuwste TX chipset tot de high-end GX chipset voor Xeon servers. Hier een stukje uit de intro:

On the motherboard there is one important set of circuits that decides what type of processor and how much memory that we can use in our computer. What I am thinking of is the chipset. The chipset is the component that connects the processor with the rest of the computer. It is with the chipsets help that the processor can get the information from the memory. The functions of the chipset also decides what type of expansion slots and ports that there can be on the motherboard. The chipset is one of the most important parts of a computer.

There are several types of chipset to choose from but the name Intel is on most of them. Most of the motherboards that are used in today use one of the several different types of chipsets that Intel has provided us with. The letters in the name of the chipset is not a shortening but just a product name. The chipsets that work with Intel Pentium II, Celeron and Xeon are 440BX, 440EX and 440LX.

AGN Hardware heeft een review van de Pioneer 6x DVD-ROM drive op de site geparkeerd. Hier wat info:

Pioneer has brought an interesting innovation over to their DVD-ROM that until now I have only seen in car CD players. In order to load the disk into the drive, you just slide the disk into the front and the player grabs the disk and loads it. This bypasses the need for any tray or caddy, the most common loading method for CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs until now. Another benefit of using this type of loading is it is easier on the disk’s wear and tear, because there is no tray for the disk to scrape against while spinning.

Ik zag op AGN 3D wat info over een Playstation emulator voor ons PC gebruikers. Ik geen idee waarom je een PSX zou willen emuleren op de PC. Anyway, ik zal niet zeiken. Hier is de feature list:

- Runs on Windows95 or Windows98

- Requires only 16Mb RAM for operation

- Quick loading of game software on machines with - CD-ROM drives faster than 2X!

- Enhanced graphics and speed for Direct3DÒ -compatible - 3D accelerator cards, although not required

- Full-screen display in 15, 16, 24 and 32 bits-per-pixel

- Windowed display in 15, 16, 24 and 32 bits-per-pixel

- User can resize and move window!

- Multi-Monitor support for Windows 98

- Graphics configuration lets you specify a specific - DirectDrawÒ graphics mode for ALL operations!

(This means you can tell bleem to always use 320x200 for higher speed, or 640x480 for better resolution!)

Complete support for all PlayStation graphics modes and resolutions

(Yes, bleem even supports games that use 24-bit, even if your graphics card is only 15- or 16-bit!)

- Complete emulation of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) operations, even alpha-blended gouraud shaded textured quads!

- Mono or Stereo sound output

- 8- or 16-bit sound output

- User selectable sound output sampling rates

(Choose lower output rates for faster emulation, or use a higher rate for better sound quality!)

- Sound configuration lets user specify a specific - DirectSoundÒ driver!

- Full Motion Video (MDEC) in 16- and 24- bit output

- Full Motion Video (MDEC) in black/white only for higher speed

- Stereo Full Motion Audio (CDXA)

- Completely user-configurable input controllers!

(Mix and match any combination of input devices to configure your controllers)

- Complete support for DirectInputÒ devices including - POV hats, sliders and axes!

- No separate PlayStation ROM BIOS required!

- 100% hand-optimized machine code -- No C or C++ anywhere!

Meer info staat op www.bleem.com.

Anand heeft een review van de AOpen AX63 mammaplank in elkaar gedraaid. Het bijzondere van dit beestje is dat-ie is voorzien van een VIA Apollo Pro chipset. Geen intel dus.

De benchmarks die we tot nu toen van de Apollo Pro hebben gezien waren niet echt prettig om aan te zien. De Apollo was +/_ 10% trager dan de BX chipset, maar volgens Anand's benchmarks is er inmiddels geen verschil meer te zien (AX63 = 14,8 fps in QII Crusher.dm2, AX6BC haalt dezelfde framerate).

De AX63 is jumperless, net zoals de Abit moederborden:

AOpen allows the user to manually select the FSB setting regardless of the type of processor installed in the system, using a 6-pin jumper block that is adjacent to the last DIMM slot.  The board, by default, ships with the FSB selection set to auto, so if you're planning on overclocking you'll want to take a look at the jumper configuration. 

Twead3D heeft een review van de Matrox Marvel G200-TV in elkaar geplant. De Marvel is zoals je wellicht zult weten een G200 met mogelijkheden voor video editing. Hier wat info:

There are very few video cards on the market with as many features as the Matrox Marvel G200-TV. The question is, will you use them? If you're looking for all these wonderful features, and you're willing to spend a little extra cash, the card is perfect for you. In fact, if you plan to use even only a few of the features, you're much better off buying this card instead of buying individual cards for each of its features. Also, when teamed up with a Voodoo2 or even Voodoo2 SLI, this card is just as intended, marvelous. The price certainly can't compare with the countless hours of fun you will have if you purchase the Matrox Marvel G200-TV.

Upgrade Center heeft een review gepost van de Gigabyte GA-5AX socket7 moederplank met ALi Alladdin 5 chipset. Het ding heeft een hele zooi busspeed settings (met naast de gebruikelijke snelheden extra busspeeds van 105 tot 140Mhz in stappen van 5!).

Een zwaar probleem met de huidige socket7 planken is de AGP compatibiliteit, maar die lijkt bij dit moederbord wel ok te zijn:

I ran the board with two separate AGP video cards to see if there would be any problem.  The first video card was the brand new Giga-byte GA-630.  This is a great Voodoo Banshee based AGP board with 16MB of fast SGRAM and a nice little cooling fan on the Banshee chip.  It installed smoothly with my AMD K6-2 400MHz processor and ran glitch free.  3DMark ran consistently around 1880.  The second video card I tried was the STB Velocity 4400.  This board installed nicely without any problems and ran flawlessly during my testing.   Of course I downloaded and deployed all the latest AGP drivers and other Windows98 tweaks to bring all my components up to the most recent versions.