Creative Labs heeft een nieuwe DVD kit in elkaar geknutseld, met een drive op 6x speed en een verbeterde dvd decoder. Hier wat soep uit de press release:

Expanding its line of award-winning PC-DVD solutions, Creative Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREAF - news), the world's leading provider of multimedia products for the PC, today announced the shipment of its new Creative® PC-DVD(TM) Encore 6X Dxr(TM)3 upgrade kit and the stand-alone Blaster DVD-ROM 6X drive. The Creative PC-DVD Encore 6X Dxr3 is designed for PC users who want to experience the ultimate in PC-DVD technology and performance.

PC-DVD Encore 6X Dxr3 features Creative's latest decoder card, the successor to the award-winning Dxr2 decoder card. Video quality has been significantly enhanced with this revision, and coupled with the PC-DVD 6X drive offers the ultimate PC-DVD solution. PC-DVD Encore 6X addresses multiple segments of the PC market with the latest DVD technology, including the entertainment enthusiast, home PC user and PC gamer. PC-DVD Encore 6X Dxr3 delivers enormous storage capacity (up to 17 gigabytes of data), enhanced full-motion, full-screen video plus Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio.

``PC-DVD Encore 6X Dxr3 is the latest offering in Creative's award-winning line of PC-DVD Encore solutions,'' said Chris Kukshtel, senior brand manager at Creative. ``With Encore's new Dxr3 card, consumers will experience sharper, cinema-quality DVD video, plus, awesome audio for movies and games.''

Creative PC-DVD Encore 6x Dxr3 -- Advanced Video with Faster Access

Creative's PC-DVD Encore 6x Dxr3 kit ships with everything needed to experience the latest in PC-DVD technology -- the new Dxr3 DVD decoder card, the PC-DVD 6X drive and three interactive DVD software titles.

Eidos heeft vandaag Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty gereleased. Ik speel nauwelijks spellen (weinig tijd) maar Commandos vond ik toch wel errug wreed. Beyond the Call of Duty beloofd meer van hetzelfde. Hier heb je de info uit de press release van Eidos:

Eidos Interactive (Nasdaq:EIDSY - news), a leading worldwide developer and publisher of interactive entertainment, announced today the release of Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty for PC CD-ROM.

Command an elite fighting force, armed with new weapons and joined by a new female commando, Natasha ``Lips'' Vanderzand, into the heart of enemy territory and defeat the ultimate enemy, the Third Reich, in this stand-alone eight mission product. Published by Eidos Interactive and developed by Pyro Studios, Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty is the latest in Eidos' growing line-up of inventive RTS titles and is available now at the suggested retail price of $29.99.

Near photo realistic graphics and new missions await as gamers are immersed in an authentic WWII real-time tactical infiltration experience. With the ability to select Easy or Hard difficulty levels, even the novice gamer stands a chance to achieve final victory in Europe. Battle the Nazi scourge in new locations including the Channel Islands, Holland, Belgrade, Crete and Greece. With the larger new mission maps, gamers are able to navigate through these action packed scenarios with ease while using an expansive arsenal of new commando toys.

``By combining real-time tactical infiltration and in-depth original gameplay with stunning graphics, 'Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty' is a great addition to our growing real-time strategy brand, ''Go to War,`` and the Commandos franchise,'' said Paul Baldwin, vice president of marketing Eidos Interactive. ``It gives gamers an experience they won't soon forget.''

Up to four players can go to war in multi-player mode over a LAN or WAN via TCP-IP protocol with enhanced gameplay over EidosGames.com. Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty is compatible with Windows® 95 or 98 computers with minimum specifications of a Pentium® 166 with 32MB, 4X CD ROM, and DirectX 5.2 or DXMEDIA installed.

Review Zone heeft er maar weer eens een K7 preview tegenaan gegooid. Zoals de meeste p/reviews van Review Zone geeft deze best wel goede info.

Hier een stuk over de L1 cache van de K7:

28KB of L1 cache is double the current maximum on any x86 processor. If you can remember the time when the P166 MMX came out, you may remember the fact that many magazines reported that it matched a P200 in most benchmarks. This had nothing to do with the MMX instruction set, as few applications supported them at the time. The culprit was a 32KB L1 cache up from the earlier 16KB. While we probably won't see the same percentage rise in performance going from 64KB to 128KB (the law of diminishing returns) this would still result in quite a boost. Consider the fact that the Celeron line of CPUs currently run with 128KB of L2 cache and are giving the PIIs a run for their money.

There have been rumors that the bigger size of the L1 cache would mean slower memory timings but this remains to be seen. In the end, though, I think that we will see quite a significant performance boost.

The Super7 hardware guide heeft een review geplaatst van de K6-III 400MHz

There's absolutely no doubt that the performance is there so if you're lookin' for a rocket to power your Super7 system, by all means. On the other hand, the price/performance ratio at this time favors the K6-2 for owners of current super7 mainboards and the Celeron A for those who are looking for a completely new system board/CPU combo. If, as in the past, AMD reduces it's price after a short period of time, the K6-III is going to have a definite edge in the processor wars.

Ja, zelfs een Mac kun je overklokken. Op deze site kunnen G3 gebruikers [niemand hiero ] zien hoe ze een watergekoelde Mac kunt bouwen. De resultaten:

81 F (27 C) @ 450mhz (before extra cd-rom mod)

126 F (52 C) @ 450mhz (after extra cd-rom mod)

97 F (36 C) @ 450mhz (after mod with fan)

90 F (32 C) @ 450mhz (after peltier and fan)

39 F (3 C) @ 450mhz (after peltier and water cooling)

The Register heeft (via JC) info over een nieuwe chipset van VIA met ondersteuning voor 133MHz FSB. Daarmee zou VIA eerder dan Intel een chipset met 133MHZ FSB op de markt brengen:

ccording to the site, the chipset will support 133MHz front side bus (FSB) and PC-133, something which Intel has not, so far, implemented.

Motherboard manufacturers already have samples, while VIA is collaborating with Samsung, NEC and Micron on the memory technology.

133MHz lukt trouwens ook wel met de huidige BX chipset, alleen is het nogal lastig om geheugen te vinden dat stabiel draait op die snelheid.

De Review Zone heeft een uitgebreide review geplaatst waarin 6 grote IDE hd's met elkaar worden vergeleken.

Now, take into consideration that higher RPM speeds do result in a slight increase in performance, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that 5400 RPM drives are slower. There are plenty of 5400 RPM drives outperforming the 7200 RPM breed. As for the 10,000 RPM drives, they’re all SCSI and most of them get so hot that you need to cool them with the aid of a drive cooler.

Op onze trouwe nieuwsbron The Register vonden we het bericht dat Intel begin volgend jaar officieel 100MHz FSB Celerons op de markt gaat brengen. Ook krijgen ze de SIMD instructies ingebouwd

Intel always had the technology to do that with Celerons, as reported here early this year, but has now made the decision to go ahead.

At the moment Intel has not made a decision when Celeron's will use the 133MHz FSB, the source said.

Dat laatste is logisch. Als Celerons ook 133MHz FSB zouden krijgen is er helemaal geen reden meer om te veel te dure processoren uit Intels "high end" te kopen.

AGN Hardware heeft de Voodoo3 2000, 3000 en 3500 op de testbank
geparkeerd en gepijnigd met een zooi 3DMark99 en Quake II benchmarks.
Over de 3500 concluderen ze het volgende:

Despite limited availability, this is truly the performance freak's board. It has all the speed and features you could hope for (sans the 32bit color) and it really turns the other 2 flavors on their ear when it comes to performance at higher resolutions. I whole heatedly recommend this card to those of you who love the speed, have a bigger monitors, and have to have the best you can get. I myself fall into this category and have been more than impressed with the 3500 thus far.

De review lees je bij AGN Hardware.

3DSpotlight heeft een interview met Derek Perez, PR manager bij nVidia, gepost. Hier een stukje:

Q: What card manufacturers are confirmed that will release TNT2 based cards?

A: At this time the following are going to be doing TNT2 based cards: Diamond Multimedia, Creative Labs, Canopus, Hercules, ELSA, ASUS, Leadtek and Guillemot

Q: How much more time is it going to take to see TNT2 based cards in store shelves?

A: You should see boards on the shelves by May 1st.

Hier kun je vinden hoe je een dual celeron inelkaar knutselt.

This time you don't have to sweat cuz there's no drilling involved, but still you need equipment. I don't have a list of the things, but you can see the mess of tools strewn all over. Ok! Ok! Primarily you need a solder, black insulation tape, scissors and a multimeter for testing.

Hardware Central heeft een preview geupt van de langverwachte 3DLabs Permedia III videochip, die nog steeds niet gereleased is. Het is de vraag in de hoeverre de P3 een serieus kan concurreren met de TNT2 en Voodoo3. Besides dat heeft-ie wel een paar leuke features, waaronder 'virtual textures':

Beyond their ICD, 3DLabs also has quite a few other new and innovative features. The most interesting of these is "Virtual Textures". Virtual textures allow for an effect very similar to S3's texture compression. In normal game circumstances, it will allow for a 16x bandwidth advantage, which is in essence a few times better than S3TC. The other advantage of Virtual Textures is potentially smoother gameplay, as loading textures is done in a vastly different way. The basic premise of virtual textures is that the card only loads what you need at that instant. If you are staring at half of a texture, only half of it is loaded into the local frame buffer. This greatly reduces the need for texture swapping, and increases the effective bandwidth. There are two main examples of how this works -- revealing a texture, and travelling down a hall towards a texture.

3DLabs zegt trouwens dat de Permedia III vergelijkbare prestaties zal leveren als de TNT2. Interessant. Zie de review van Hardware Central.