Onze russische vrienden van iXBT Labs hebben een review van de Asus P3B-F in elkaar getikt. De P3B-F is de opvolger van de welbekende Asus P2B en is een van de eerste borden die wordt verpakt in een 6xPCI/1xISA layout. Verder heeft-ie (naast ordinaire dipswitches) een jumperless CPU config dingetje én wordt-ie geleverd met het nieuwe versie 6 Award/Phoenix BIOS:

Besides, we would like to specially dwell on BIOS installed into P3B-F. It is Award. However, it is not a 4.51 version, which already palls on everybody with its lapidary exterior, but a new 6.0 one developed by Award and Phoenix engineers after Phoenix had bought Award. As a result of these joint efforts, BIOS has a windowed structure with the exterior from Phoenix and interior from Award. That's why BIOS Setup contains all the functions required for system configuring: IRQ assigning for PCI slots, fine tuning of all memory timings, etc. Also BIOS supports Suspend-to-RAM function, which allows saving the working system state in the memory and the latter remains under voltage while all the other components are disconnected. Quitting this state takes 10 seconds at the most, and after that the user can resume the work from where he stopped when Suspend-to-RAM was activated.

The Heatsink Guide heeft een review van de Cooler Master Cooldrive harddrive cooler gepost.

When you see the CoolDrive cooler just from the outside, you might think: Hey, that's just a face plate with two fans - these coolers have been available for years! Wrong - the CoolDrive unit, unlike many other HDD coolers, also includes a large heatsink that cools the hard drive by contact. A self-glueing thermal interface material is included, which you can glue on the HDD's chip set, and then install the HDD "inside" the heatsink.

Meer info en plaatjes van dit ding vind je hier. Verder heeft The Heatsink Guide ook nog een review van de TennMax P3 F heatsink gepost.

System Logic heeft een review van de AOpen AX6B-Plus moederplank online gezet. De AX6B-Plus is AOpen's high-end slot1 bord en is voorzien van een onboard Adaptec AHA-7880P SCSI controller en wordt geleverd met een Softmenu-achtig CPU config gevalletje:

The AX6B+ uses soft-jumpers, so overclocking should theoretically be relatively easy. The catch is that core voltage is detected automatically, which is in all likelihood unacceptable for overclockers. Once again, neither AOpen nor SystemLogic.net are responsible for your overclocking endeavors. The AX6B+ offers a fair number of bus speeds, including all of the more common ones: 66/68.5/75/83/100/112/133 MHz. Multipliers range from 1x to 8x in increments of 0.5x. Again, the importance of core voltage, and AOpen’s decision to use hardware to determine it, severely limits the functionality of the otherwise impressive multipliers and bus speeds. Overclockers will be forced to due pin taping and other hardware modifications which are not worth the effort. Even then, newsgroup postings indicate that he motherboard may still be able to auto-detect voltage. In my overclocking tests, my Pentium II 450, which is able to boot and run Windows at 504 MHz when supplied with 2.3V, was not able to do the same with the AX6B+, simply because the motherboard only supplied the standard 2.0V. For AOpen boards that are more o/c friendly, look into the AX6BC series.

Speedy3D heeft een review gepost van de Elsa Synergy II, een op de TNT2 gebaseerde entry-level workstation kaart. De OpenGL drivers zijn zelf door Elsa gebakken en geoptimaliseerd voor 3D Modelling:

I wasn’t expecting it to be able to do much of anything for gaming but boy was I wrong. There is nothing is card can’t do. Run 3D Studio Max/VIZ with accelerated drivers. Play games. Create web pages. What more could you want. Besides pizza of course…=). So this card has it all. Good Drivers. Good Image Quality. Good Performance. All this at high resolutions. This is a workstation graphics card so there isn’t much need for a games bundle. That would be a good idea though. Something to do during work……….=). I give it a 10.0 for Price. Did I mention this card (16mb version)was available at a great price of $180? The 32MB Version was $215, I know most people may think this is a little price, but don’t forget its main use is entry-level workstation products.

Overclocker's Workbench heeft een paar SL36A C300A's van de straat gepikt om te checken in hoeverre deze exemplaren overklokbaar zijn. Eerdere berichten spraken over de wonderbaarlijke wederopstanding van de C300A (de SL36A zou 598Mhz doen). De bevindingen van Overclocker's Workbench:

I put in a GlobalWin heatsink/fan with the CPU, it has no problems at all with FSB of 100,105,107,110,112,114,117 at all. Windows 98 ran fine till 117Mhz. I was able to run Winbench 99 at 114Mhz. 117 Mhz no GO.! Anything that is above 117 will not POST. The processor runs fine at 2.0v at 35 Deg Celsius as reported by Motherboard Monitor ver 3.81. I noticed something that is weird. When I select anything above 100Mhz, the AC97 audio on my i810 based board couldn't work at all. Everything else is fine. I have email the FAE dept. of the mainboard manufacturer. I shall keep you guys informed once I get an answer.

Overclockers' Workbench weet ons te vertellen dat Abit - naast een nieuwe BIOS voor de BX6-II - nog meer nieuwe BIOSsen heeft gereleased. Zo te zien hebben alle 'oude' slot1 en socket370 borden een BIOS update gekregen:

- BM6: ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/bios/bm6/
- ZM6: ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/bios/zm6/
- BX6: ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/bios/bx6/
- BX6R2: ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/bios/bx6r2/
- BH6: ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/bios/bh6/

Graig van Sharky Extreme heeft een review van de 13,6Gb dikke Fireball KA UltraATA/66 harddisk gepost. De KA is Quantum's eerste EIDE schijf met een rotatiesnelheid van 7200rpm:

We compared the new KA drive from Quantum to the first generation of 7,200rpm drives, which came in the form of the Seagate Medalist Pro line early last year. Even thought the spindle speed of the two drives is the same (7,200rpm), it's amazing to see how the technology has improved in hard drives to the point where a current generation 7,200rpm drive is dramatically faster than one made just a year ago. We found the Fireball Plus KA drive to be very fast in daily usage, load times were noticeably quicker than other drives our lab currently contains. Another plus to the Fireball that we grew to appreciate was its noise level, which was incredibly low. Several times while using the drive the only clue to its operation was the blinking status light on the ATX case of the test machine it was mounted in.

Playdevil (belgensite) heeft een aantal game release dates - waaronder Unreal Tournament - van GT Interactive los weten te purken:

- Unreal Tournament - 27/08/99
- Driver - 24/09/99
- Wheel of Time - October '99

Uiteraard kan dit weer allemaal gedelayed worden, maar in ieder geval hebben we nu een richtdatum.

Riva3D heeft een artikeltje gebakken met speculaties over de NV10. De geruchten molen begint nu aardig op gang te komen en het lijkt erop dat de NV10 net zo overhyped gaat worden als de TNT destijds (die z'n verwachtingen niet helemaal waar kon maken). Anyway, hier heb je wat spul uit dat verhaaltje van Riva3D:

The NV10 also takes advantage of the .18 micron die, which allows NVIDIA to cram two times the total number of transistors in a P-III on the chip. NVIDIA also describes the NV10 as a GPU, or graphics processing unit, which will off-load many graphic computational tasks that were previously handled by the CPU, thus freeing up the CPU for other tasks. What this suggests is that the NV10, unlike the RIVA or TNT chipsets, will not be as processor dependent. This means that graphics performance should not rely as much on the speed of your processor in order to achieve high frame rates at high resolutons and bit depth. This is indeed good news for everyone, not just those who can afford the fastest processors.

Abit heeft een nieuw BIOS voor de BX6-II in elkaar gesleuteld. Op dit moment is nog niet bekend wat het BIOS doet, maar het is nieuw dus zal het wel beter zijn. BIOS revisie MN kun je hier van Abit's FTP trekken.

MacOS Rumors heeft een lijstje met details over de iBook gepost. Hier heb je de belangrijkste punten:

The Open World Boot ROM on the iBook's Uni-North ("Unified Architecture," or "UA") motherboard is now fully flashable, eliminating the closed ROM architecture on the Mac forever -- at least once C2, Sawtooth, and the next-generation Powerbook have replaced their current counterparts. Because the Boot ROM is flashable, non-Apple operating systems should be able to patch Open Firmware and other parts of the early boot process that have been hard-wired in the past. In fact, this could pave the way for third party upgrade makers to create tools that will download the contents of the Boot ROM and upload them into a flash SRAM or similar storage on an upgrade card...even on "closed" architectures like the iBook, iMac, and Powerbook.

In fact, if the implications of this are fully understood, the OpenWorld architecture may begin to pave the way for Mac cloning's return by making it possible to create a third-party boot ROM that can properly initiate a non-Apple motherboard and load the operating system (by the time this is possible, most likely this would be Mac OS X).

The hard disk in the iBook uses the same UltraDMA/66 bus similar to that used in the Blue G3 -- but posesses twice as much bandwidth, as will all Open World Macs. This paves the way for user expansion to high-end notebook drives, and helps the iBook boost performance as compared to the Powerbook G3 Series, which uses ATA-3 (16.6MB/s, somewhat greater processor usage than UDMA).

Contrary to the apparent belief of some non-industry journalists, the iBook uses a standard 300MHz copper-interconnect PowerPC 750 processor. Because it is the least powerful copper G3, it is also the coolest -- the iBook uses, and needs, no fans. Many Expo attendees report that iBooks that had received very heavy usage not only lasted throughout the entire show on one battery charge, but they also felt barely warmer than room temperature.

3DRage heeft een review klaar van de Gigabyte GA-660 TNT2 videokaart. Hier heb je een stuk over de overklokbaarheid, voor de rest, klik hier.

With an exceptionally high core clock speed that is above the recommended setting of the Ultra TNT2, you would not expect the GA-660 to be able to yield much higher results, considering the TNT2 is already "overclocked" in a sense. So, I quickly opened the display setting and opened the overclocking utility. I then proceeded to adjust the core clock and memory clock speed to the maximum value that the overclocking utility would allow - 170/170. To test its stability while in this highly overclocked state, I played Quake 2 Massive and Crusher demos in a continuous loop for two hours. When I returned to my system, everything was running as it should meaning the overclocking utility would have to be passed up for a third party utility, namely Powerstrip. My first attempt was 175/200 which failed to no surprise, crashing about 2 secnods into Massive. I then opted for a more "conservative" setting, this being 170/190. While this seemed to be stable, my system locked up 20 minutes into the looping Massive and Crusher demos. My next attempt was for 170/185Mhz. I did the usual tests and ran them for two hours. When I came back........ it was still running. This is an incredibly high core clock for a TNT2 to achieve as well as the memory clock. What is so incredible is the fact that the GA-660 will yield better overclocking results than some Ultra TNT2's shipped at the default specifications. Now you could speculate the results you would receive if the memory were 5.5ns instead of 7ns.

Ik kwam via Ace's Hardware bij deze wazige japanse site, waar ze benchmarks hebben van de AOpen AX63 Pro en AX6BC Pro met resp. een VIA Apollo 133 en Intel 440BX chipset. Hoewel er de afgelopen tijd veel ophef is geweest over de Apollo 133 chipset (die dus ondersteuning heeft voor PC133 SDRAM), blijkt de BX chipset met PC100 SDRAM gewoon sneller te zijn (zoals eerder aangetoond door iXBT Labs). Het artikel is geschreven in het japans, maar de benchmark grafiekjes zijn wel leesbaar. Check 't hier.

AOL is in een gezellig gevecht gewikkeld met Microsoft. Ome Bill had namelijk een nieuwe versie van MSN Messenger in elkaar getikt die compatible was met AOL's Instant Messenger.

<Refrein>
AOL was daar niet blij mee en blokkeerde de toegang voor MSN gebruikers, waarop Microsoft een fix uitbracht.
</Refrein>

...en zo zijn Microsoft en AOL al een paar dagen vrolijk met elkaar oorlogje aan het spelen. Betanews brengt een update met de huidige stand van zaken:

Earlier tonight, the America Online blockade was reaffirmed with the new build of MSN Messenger falling flat on its face once again. The instant messaging war has been heightened now that America Online has already thwarted Microsoft's latest build. AIM support has been disabled once again. However the software giant has stated that it will not back down from the matter. They will continue to adjust their software as needed if AOL continues to block MSN Messenger access. In addition to this block, AOL has removed all of their open source AIM clients from their Web site. If you visit the pages for TiK and the other command line based clients, you will see nothing but a blank page. I wouldn't be surprised if an AIM boycott comes in the near future. AOL is walking on a thin line by displeasing millions of their users who would also like to communicate with MSN users. Thanks to Netigen for sending us the scoop.

AOL vs. Microsoft: Round 3 - Microsoft has once again released a new version of MSN Messenger Service 1.0, reinstating suppot for AOL users. This latest build was posted just a few moments ago, proving that Microsoft will continue to update their client despite what AOL does.

Ga lekker ICQ'en, zou ik zeggen .

Rick Belluzzo (hoogste pief bij SGI) spreekt in een interview met C|Net News.com over de nieuwe op Linux gerichte strategie van Silicon Graphics (dat bdw voor het eerst sinds 2 jaar weer winst heeft gemaakt):

SGI plans to introduce its new Intel-based servers in early August running both Linux and Microsoft Windows NT operating systems, the company has previously said. But according to Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Milunovich: "SGI will lead with Linux but offer Windows NT as an add-on."

"We think Linux is important," Belluzzo said. "We think it's the operating system of the Internet. The opportunity is to make Linux more powerful, which we intend to do."

However, SGI's Linux plans took a hit recently, with TurboLinux hiring away Dave McAllister, an eight-year SGI employee who helped chart SGI's Linux plans.

Op \. wordt er overwegend positief gereageerd op het bericht van News.com.

Gamespot heeft een artikeltje over de nVidia NV10 op de site geplant. Afgaande van de specs zou dit nog wel eens een erg wrede kaart kunnen worden:

The NV10 should be no slouch in the fill-rate department, either. nVidia conservatively estimates that NV10 will deliver about twice the fill rate of current generation 3D chips. So what can you do with that much horsepower? How about running your games smoothly at a resolution of 1600x1200x32 with all the rendering goodies turned on? Sound appealing? Yeah, we thought so too.

[...] NV10 will support the AGP 4X standard, effectively doubling the rate at which it can get data from system memory to a speed of 1.1GB/sec. A 350MHz RAMDAC will make for higher refresh rates at high resolutions, and nVidia plans to offer the NV10 in two RAM loadouts, 32 and 64MB. NV10 will support SDRAM and SGRAM, and nVidia is considering support for Double Data Rate (DDR) SGRAM if it becomes widely available. [break]Tussendoor ook nog een stukje over de S3/Diamond deal en hoe nVidia daar over denkt:[/break]

Given the recent S3/Diamond merger, and that nVidia has made public its intent to no longer sell chips to Diamond, we're likely to see NV10-based boards from Creative Labs, Hercules, Guillemot, and several Taiwanese board makers the same companies that are making TNT2-based boards. TNT2 is also currently a darling among system makers including Falcon Northwest, Dell, Gateway, and Micron, and those companies are going to be giving NV10 a serious look for their fall and holiday season offerings.

Volgens EBNews zou Apple één van de eerste PC bouwers kunnen zijn die overgaat op PC266 Double Data Rate SDRAM:

Apple Computer Inc. could be among the first PC makers to use double-data-rate PC266 SDRAMs in a desktop. Sources said the computer maker is working out the part's clock-timing issues in order to use DDR as main memory.

DDR is expected to debut late this year or early in 2000 in PC servers as well as dedicated graphics chipset frame-buffer memory. However, the PC266 memory was expected to transition slightly later into mainstream PC desktops.

Het volk van Hard OCP heeft een mannetje van EMS (Enhanced Memory Systems Inc.) zover gekregen dat-ie voor hun een onderwijzende plak tekst over SDRAM in elkaar heeft geschreven. Hier alvast de intro:

It has become apparent that the computer world in general has done a poor job of explaining what memory technology is used in a PC and just what all this jargon means (Intel likes it that way). Just what is synchronous memory? How do you get from 133 MHz to 7.5 ns? What is CAS Latency? What is clock access time and why should I care? Will I get some wool or get rich before I die. Do I really need better RAM?

We certainly cannot demystify the whole world of memory technology without boring everyone (except the technocrats) to tears, but we will attempt to do little pieces with a minimum of technical jargon and almost no math. We will start with the SDRAM. If we do a really bad job on the first article, we will add nudie pics to the next. You know, Jerry Springer meets SDRAM…

Via deze link kun je verder lezen.

Betanews weet te vertellen dat Microsoft vandaag de eerste beta van Windows Millenium zal releasen. Eerlijkgezegd heb ik nog helemaal nooit van dit OS gehoord...

We have several reports that Microsoft testers will be able to download the first beta of Microsoft Windows Millennium and CDs will be sent to testers tomorrow. Windows Millennium may be the do or die project for Microsoft, as many OS competetors are starting to emerge. A couple of speculated features of Windows Millennium is no more Start menu and no legacy DOS support. These should make this the most stable and robust OS Microsoft has ever offered. Stay tuned for more information as it comes out. [break]Hmm, is er leven zonder Start Menu? Nog een update van Betanews: [/break] Many of you are wondering when Microsoft is going to open up Winbeta and let testers download the new version of Microsoft Windows. All we can say right now is that it should be expected around 4PM Microsoft Time (Pacific Time). Remember, you heard this news on BetaNews.Com first, and we will keep you posted on any new news of this important event.

Het wordt weer een blije dag voor de Diamond haters, want Diamond heeft teleurstellende tweede kwartaals cijfers bekend gemaakt . Hier heb je wat plukwerk uit een nieuwsbericht van The Register:

Diamond Multimedia yesterday posted disappointing Q2 results, but at least the figures suggest S3's acquisition of the company should go ahead as planned.

Diamond reported revenues for the quarter, ended 30 June, of $128.7 million, down 34 per cent on the $172.3 million posted for the same period last year.

But while revenue fell, the company's loss improved -- this time it lost $5.4 million; last year it lost $8.3 million. That implies that the company's plan to improve its business -- primarily by moving away from low-margin products like low-end 3D graphics cards and modems, and toward more profitable areas like digital music and home networking -- is beginning to take effect.

The final income figure Diamond posted was actually $10.8 million, thanks to a charges incurred in the process of converting its RioPort division into an independently operating business. RioPort, which focuses on the MP3 digital music market, will be spun off during the current quarter.