Seagate heeft vandaag een nieuwe serie UltraATA/66 schijven aangekondigd. Hier heb je een stuk uit de press release (waar vooral veel onzinnig marketing geblah in staat):

Seagate Technology Inc. (NYSE: SEG) today extended its leadership in disc drives optimized for low-cost computing devices with the introduction of its third generation of "U-series" disc drives, the world's first family designed specifically for use in entry-level home and business computers as well as home electronics. The new models extend the award-winning "U-series" by doubling capacity to as much as 17.2 Gbytes and significantly improving performance. The U8 includes the latest in drive component technology, including GMR heads, Seagate G-Force Protection and the Ultra ATA/66 interface, delivering greater value to sub-$700 PCs.

[blaah] Given Seagate's vertical integration and internal technology development resources, the Company is able to offer the "U series" of disc drives at very competitive prices. With WinBench performance expected to match that of traditional mainstream 5,400-rpm drives, the U8 offers the industry's most outstanding value proposition.

Leveraging Seagate's exclusive, proven G-Force Protection, the U8 can withstand up to 350 Gs of shock when not operating and up to 63 Gs of shock when operating -- the best in the industry and perfect for the rigors of OEM and reseller integration activities and for home and business environments. This breakthrough in shock tolerance was enabled by leading-edge internal drive enhancements and external shock protection components such as the U8's soft SeaShield cover.

The U8 also ships with Seagate's highly-praised DiscWizard software, dubbed by PC World the "best installation software and ... the easiest of the software packages to use."

The U8 will be available with capacities of 17.2, 13.0, 8.4 and 4.3 Gbytes. Evaluation units of the U8 are now shipping, with volume OEM availability in September.

Extensis heeft aangekondigd dat versie 3 van PhotoTools, een plugin voor Photoshop, wordt uitgerust met 3DNow! support:

Extensis Corporation today announced that PhotoTools 3.0 takes full advantage of the new AMD Athlon(TM) processor with 3DNow!(TM) technology to create a new level of desktop 3D processing power. The AMD Athlon processor, in combination with Extensis PhotoTools 3.0, provides creative professionals with an impressive hardware platform for creating real-world, 3-D graphics for print, Web and multimedia design.

"Creative professionals traditionally use the most CPU-intensive software. We support the AMD Athlon processor as it provides our customers with the outstanding performance they need for their graphics tools. Optimizing PhotoTools 3.0 for the AMD Athlon processor will bring even faster speeds to our customers, thereby offering tremendous quality and production improvements to the creative design industry," said Ray Marshall, vice president of product development at Extensis.

About PhotoTools 3.0

Extensis PhotoTools 3.0 is an award-winning collection of plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop that is used to create real-world special effects for print, multimedia and Web design. PhotoTools 3.0 offers revolutionary approaches to common Photoshop tasks, such as texture making, button building, custom beveling, shadow casting, GIF animation and special effects. More information on Extensis PhotoTools 3.0 can be found at http://www.extensis.com/phototools .

Riva3D heeft een handig artikeltje gepost dat stap voor stap uitlegt hoe je zowel Windows NT als Windows 98/95 kunt booten met je dual systeem.

Recently I decided to setup my machine for a dual boot configuration of both Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98. Despite what some people may think this process is relatively easy, provided you have the correct tools. This process will work for either Windows 95 or Windows 98.

Wellicht handig voor de BP6 gebruikers onder ons...

System Apex heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid over de True-X technologie van Zen Research, die in Kenwood CD-ROM drives gebruikt wordt en een constante rotatiesnelheid mogelijk maakt:

As these CAV drives progressed, they became faster and faster due to higher speed motors. This became another problem within itself though, as once you hit 40x max or so, the drive must do 10,000 RPM to read at that speed. This causes the “Jet Engine” effect that a lot of high speed CD-ROM owners can tell you about. It also meant that a CAV drive had to spin up to 10,000 RPM before reading, and that takes a good amount of time too.

The solution for this problem seemed to be non-existent for a time, then a little known company called Zen research changed all that. They took the trusty CLV technology, and adding something to it, and built a TrueX drive. This thing they added was the ability for the drive to emit 7 beams at once, therefore giving a 7x increase in speed, that was sustainable due to CLV technology.

This drive then hit the market as the Kenwood Multibeam 40x CD-ROM drive. While it was overlooked in the beginning, the drives soon got a small, but loyal following. That's when the word hit the streets, and the word TrueX became part of everyone's system recommendations.

The TrueX speed boost itself was not in vain either, as other things came out from it. First, the random access times were extremely low due to the less time needed to spin-up for the drive. It was also a rather quiet drive to due its low RPM speeds. But alas, it had a few bugs in the beginning though.

Check System Apex voor het complete artikel.

Betanews weet ons te vertellen dat Asus de final version van z'n v2.08 TNT Detonator drivers heeft gereleased. De Win9x en NT versies kun je hier downloaden.

De Cray en WinNT Visual Workstation devisies van Silicon Graphics ...euh... SGI zullen, als slachtoffer van een reorganisatie, gedumpt worden:

The company will spin off its Cray supercomputer division and Windows NT Visual workstation business as part of the restructuring, and will create a new group devoted to broadband Internet servers. The company will also focus on the Linux operating system and will enter partnerships involving low-end and high-end systems, Belluzzo said.

[...] Analysts expected big changes at SGI, which needed to refocus on core moneymaking businesses and dump money losers, they said. The fate of the company's Windows NT workstation business, which has struggled with disappointing sales and harsh competition since SGI launched its first NT products in January 1999, held particular interest. [break] Zoals reeds eerder bekend werd gemaakt gaat SGI zich verder richten op Linux, wat uiteindelijk een omschakeling van Irix naar Linux tot gevolg moet hebben: [/break] Going forward, SGI will shift its focus to the Linux operating systems for Intel-based platforms, while maintaining its investment in and support for MIPS-based systems into 2002, Vrolyk said.

The emergence of Linux as an industry standard, and the fact that Linux is better than any proprietary version of Unix, led SGI to reassess its position in the Windows NT market, Vrolyk said.

SGI will integrate Irix into the Linux environment, Belluzzo said, because the company believes it will be the "next business model change in the systems business." [break] Tenslotte hebben SGI en nVidia (tot voor kort nog in een rechtszaak gewikkeld) aangekondigd te gaan samenwerken bij de ontwikkeling van 3D accelerators: [/break] Through a relationship with Nvidia Corp., SGI will provide graphics solutions for low-end systems. SGI will contribute intellectual property, technology and personnel while Nvidia will provide graphics products for SGI's use and for the broader PC market. Nvidia will use SGI intellectual property to produce chip sets and boards for low-end systems, while SGI will continue to build graphics products for Onyx2 systems.

Check dit artikel van EETimes voor de complete info.

S3 heeft bekend gemaakt dat het OneStep heeft overgenomen, de ontwikkelaar van de Rio Audio Manager zachtwaar voor de Diamond Rio:

Accelerating its entry into the Internet digital audio market, S3 Incorporated today announced that it has acquired OneStep, LLC, a software development company that supplies the Rio Audio Manager to RioPort.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Diamond Multimedia Systems, and for Diamond Multime dia's Rio players.

The acquisition of OneStep's software - a key technology behind RioPort's agreement with MTV Networks Online and Diamond's Rio player contract with Compaq - underscores S3 and RioPort's intent to be a significant player in the high-growth Internet audio and MP3 music markets. "By providing a key element in RioPort's strategy, this acquisition puts S3 in a stronger position to enter new media markets upon completion of the Diamond Multimedia acquisition," stated Ken Potashner, president and CEO of S3 Incorporated.

Riva Extreme heeft een review gepost van de 10.000rpm Quantum Atlas 10K Ultra160/m SCSI drive:

But, I still believe if you want to make the MOST out of system performance (especially in day-to-day windows tasks and the like), and you are willing to spend some cash, a 10,000 rpm SCSI drive is the way to go. The Quantum Atlas 10k is certainly the best of the bunch right now. With a sustained transfer rate of 18-26MB/sec, and an extremely low access time and CPU overhead, the Quantum Atlas 10k is a great example of what high-end drives should be and what is good to look for. If you don't decide to go with an Atlas 10k, here are things you should look for. Check all of these out at the always badass Storage Review.

- Interface (is it compatible with your current/expected configuration?)
- Spindle speed (this will usually have the biggest effect on everything else)
- Sustained transfer rate (this is a more accurate depiction of what your real-world usage will be like)
- Random access time (how long to load up that mp3?)

Ik kwam bij Overclocker's Workbench dit stukje tegen over de veranderde strategie van AMD, die af wil van zijn imago als producent van el cheapo CPU's:

AMD just released it's new brand of Athlon processors. To capture the market, AMD hopes that by 2001, they would Gary Bixler, K7 marketing manager announced that their current job is to change AMD's low cost CPU image. AMD not only can produce CPUs based on FSB of 200Mhz; gearing towards high end market, by year 2000, it will also launch the whole series of processors.

According to sources, AMD Athlon will be classified under 3 categories, Athlon Select, Athlon Professional and Athlon Ultra based on their FSB and speed of L2.

On the low end market, AMD will promote K6-II and Athlon Select. For the professional users, AMD promotes Athlon Professional which could be based on the original Athlon architecture and FSB at 200mhz, 512K L2. AMD emphasises that they will continue to support K6-2 and K6-3.

As for Server and Workstation market, Gary Bixler pointed out that AMD is determined to go into this area because by Q2, year 2000, Athlon Ultra can support up to 1Gb and L2 can be up to 8Mb.

At this moment, Asia's vice president of AMD is negotiating talks with big players in the server/workstation.

AMD is determined that they will abadon their cheap CPU image, so as a user, we might not be expecting cheap processors from AMD. For the same price, you would probably get a better processor :-)

3D Alpha heeft een review van de RealMagic Hollywood Plus MPEG2 decoder online gezet. Hier heb je een hap uit de review:

The Hollywood Plus provided stunning image quality on my 27" television, and the sound quality was remarkable. It was far superior to VHS, and justified my purchase of the card immediately. After basking in the splendor of DVD on the television for awhile, I tested the playback out on the monitor. The image was stunning, making me realize just how poor the quality of analog television is. When viewing DVD movies on a computer monitor or on a digital television, the experience reaches a new height. At 1280x1024 full screen on my 17" Trinitron monitor, I was truely amazed at how clear and crisp the image was compared with the VHS image on an analog television.

Creative heeft een nieuw digitaal speaker systeempje in elkaar geklust: de Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500. Hier heb je de complete press release:

Building on its success in the home theater and PC speaker industry, Cambridge SoundWorks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology, Ltd. (Nasdaq: CREAF - news), today announced the DeskTop Theater(TM) 5.1 DTT2500 Digital, a high-output, high-performance, digital home theater system for use with PCs or conventional TVs. A complete Dolby Digital® surround sound audio system, it allows for simultaneous playback of digital sound from movies and analog audio from a PC with no additional decoder or receiver. The DTT2500 Digital delivers powerful Dolby Digital 5.1 multi-channel sound on movies from a PC-DVD or DVD player and enhances 3D positional audio in games or music.

Based on the award winning FourPointSurround FPS2000 Digital and DeskTop Theater 5.1, the DTT2500 Digital is the industry's first solution for real-time seamless mixing of Dolby Digital bitstreams with 4-channel Environmental Audio(TM) through the Digital DIN connection when used with Sound Blaster® Live!. It is an ideal companion for both PC-DVD movies and Environmental Audio games.

``With the DTT2500 Digital, we have redefined the state-of-the-art in PC audio,'' said Robert Mainiero, General Manager for Cambridge SoundWorks. ``As evidenced by its current leadership position in the speaker marketplace, Cambridge SoundWorks speaker systems are clearly the systems of choice for consumers who care about high quality sound. The combination of Creative's PC-DVD products and DTT2500 Digital turns the personal computer into the entertainment center of the future.''

``The DTT2500 Digital is a convergence product which combines Creative's electronic expertise with Cambridge SoundWorks' acoustic magic,'' said Creative's Chairman and CEO, Sim Wong Hoo. ``It expands the borders of how people will and can use their computers for personal entertainment and presentation.''

In addition to Dolby Digital, the DTT2500 Digital includes other useful multi-speaker surround modes: Dolby Pro Logic (from either the digital or analog input) and Creative Multi Speaker Surround (CMSS) which upmixes stereo sources to 5.1 surround output. CMSS includes Music, Movie, FourPoint and Stereo modes for the processing of any digital and analog material. Regardless of the room acoustics or the listening position, the DTT2500 Digital has been engineered to provide high-performance output even under the demands of Dolby Digital program material.

Pricing and Availability

With a target street price of only US$299.99, the DTT2500 Digital rivals that of more expensive home theater systems available today, making it virtually affordable to anyone with a DVD-equipped PC or DVD player. The DTT2500 Digital is available now through Creative's extensive network of distributors and retailers.

Jeremy van ANG 3D heeft een paar 3DMark / Quake / Half-Life benchmarks op z'n Athlon / PII + G400 systeempje gedraaid. Op lage resoluties blijkt de Athlon duidelijk sneller te zijn dan de PIII, maar op extreem hoge resoluties (1600x1200) blijkt de PIII vaak net ietsie sneller te zijn. Blijkbaar is de AGP implementatie van de Athlon plank toch niet helemaal optimaal. Check deze AGN nieuwwsposting voor de benchmarks.

3DRealms heeft een sample van de Duke Nukem Theme Song online gezet. Je kunt het ding in MP3 en Realaudio formaat naar beneden halen:

As reported upon below, the Duke Nukem: Music to Score By soundtrack is coming out on August 24th. Several bands are on it, not the least of which is Megadeth, who have recorded a cover version of the Duke Nukem theme song for the soundtrack.

Available now is a sound sample from the Megadeth version of the Duke Nukem theme song. Below are links you can click on to download whichever version you wish - it's available in both MP3 and RealAudio formats.

1.megaduke.mp3 (802k, MP3 Version, requires any MP3 player program)

2.megaduke.rm (285k, Non Streaming RealAudio file, requires free Real Player G2)

Athlon review nummertje weet-ik-veel komt van Gamespot. Hier heb je een stukje uit hun rapport:

So the Athlon is the fastest CPU we've seen to date. Competition is a wonderful thing, and it looks like AMD has delivered on the first half of its promise - it now has a CPU that's faster in both integer and floating point than anything Intel can deliver. The 650MHz Athlon demonstrates that AMD can also deliver higher clock rates.

But the second half of the promise is still unfulfilled, and that's the promise that users can have one. AMD has certainly had production problems in the past. It's looking like they will be somewhat production constrained with the Athlon early on as well. But a bigger problem is that AMD has to build a whole new infrastructure to support the Athlon, including new chipsets and motherboards. That will take time to ramp up. Meanwhile, it's very likely that you'll be able to buy an Athlon system in August sometime; upgraders may have to wait a bit longer.

Hardware Pros heeft een review gebouwd rondom de Epox BXB-S dual slot1 plank met onboard Ultra2 Wide SCSI controller. Hier heb je een plak uit de review:

The most obvious item of this boards setup is the 4/2/1 PCI/ISA/AGP slot configuration. You may be thinking that this is less than most other boards which have configurations of 5/2/1 or 4/3/1 but there is an important difference. On this board, all 4 PCI slots and both ISA slots can all be occupied at the same time. With most 5/2/1 and 4/3/1 configurations, 1 ISA and 1 PCI slot are shared, which means you have to use one or the other, but not both. The other reason only 4 PCI slots were included is to ensure there are no resource conflicts with the on-board Adaptec 7890 Ultra 2 Wide SCSI controller. On servers (which this board is most like to be used in), SCSI is almost always used as the primary form of I/O. Considering, this board already has a top notch SCSI controller on it, 4 PCI slots are more than enough for expandability.

Gamespot UK heeft een aantal screenshots van Colin McRae Rally 2 gepost. Hier alvast 3 tumbnails:

Ziet er niet slecht uit, hoewel Rally Championship '99 volgens mij beter is. De release van Colin McRae Rally 2 staat gepland voor volgend jaar, dus Codemasters heeft nog genoeg tijd om daar wat aan te doen .

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat Mirabilis een nieuwe alpha van ICQ op z'n download site heeft klaargezet. ICQ 99b alpha v3.16 build 2562 kun je hier downloaden.

Dan's Data heeft een review gepost van de Riva TNT2 Model 64, een gemankeerde versie van de 'echte' TNT2 chipset. Model 64 is net zoals de TNT2 uitgerust met een 128-bits wijde datapijp. De memory bus draait echter slechts op 64-bit:

The TNT2 Model 64 is a good chipset, but it doesn't have a bargain price. For a recently developed chipset it's cheap, but there are dead cheap original TNT cards all over the place, and a 16Mb TNT or even an 8Mb seems likely to score as well as a Model 64 at a given level of overclocking for OpenGL and beat it by a significant margin for Direct3D. And a real TNT2 isn't much more expensive, and looks like a rather better choice if your gaming tastes run to Direct3D.

So this certainly isn't a bad value board - but neither is it all that exciting. Older technology can pretty much match it, and newer tech beats it handily for not much more money. If you can find a Model 64 board at a good price, and it's got as much speed as you need, then buy it. Certainly, if you've got a slower-than-400MHz processor, you won't see the extra speed from a full TNT2 anyway and might as well get the cheaper hardware. But if you're after serious gaming speed, and you've got a fast CPU, you probably won't have to save much longer to get quite a bit more performance.

3D Rage heeft een review van de Abit BE6 op het net gezet. Dat dit plankje de opvolger is van de BX6-II, en is voorzien van een extra UDMA/66 controller weten we natuurlijk al lang. Dit zegt 3D Rage er over:

The Abit BE6 performed beautifully throughout the entire testing period, not crashing a single time during testing. The Soft Menu II that Abit has been utilizing in their latest motherboards is wonderful to work with, and allows you to overclock your processor with ease. The commanding feature on the board and probably the only reason to purchase it over the BX6 2.0 is the incorporation of the faster Ultra DMA/66 protocol setting as opposed to the Ultra DMA/33 found on the BX6 2.0. It would have been nice to have seen a 117Mhz front side bus setting as well as a couple others that were not present. At only $110, the Abit BE6 is a steal with the implementation of the Ultra DMA/66 protocol setting, although if you currnely have a BX6 2.0, there is no reason to upgrade.

AGN Hardware heeft in navolging van Tweak3D (zie deze nieuwsposting) een review geplaatst van de 7200rpm Quantum Vuurbal KA:

Overall I rate the Quantum Fireball KA a 9/10. The performance is quite impressive over the previous 5400 rpm hard drives and even compares well to the top end SCSI units. The drive itself doesn't really differentiate itself with respect to speed or cost from other IDE hard drives available so that is what keeps it out of the coveted 10/10 rating which would receive our AGN Editor's Choice Award. All in all, this new Quantum drive is quite competitive with anything else available right now.

ComputingPros.com heeft een review gepleegd van de nieuwe Asus P3B-F slot1 moederplank. De meest opvallende features van de P3B zijn z'n PCI sloten en de 'JumperFree' CPU setup:

With this new board from ASUS we're finally able to tinker with an Asus board from within it's BIOS. This offers us advantages we've never seen before from Asus and is highly welcomed. What makes this board more unique is it also comes with dip switches for those that just can't let go of the old way. From the specifications listed earlier the P3B-F has ample FSBs for your overclocking needs. You can crank it all the way up to 150MHz if your CPU can take it. The P3B-F offers the usual PCI divider of 1/3 or 1/4 when you go above the normal 100MHz FSB. Unfortunately though any FSB beyond the 100MHz standard results in the AGP bus being over spec which can be bad for your video card. The P3B-F has a clock multiplier that ranges from 2x - 8.5x so that means this board won't be obsolete soon since faster Celerons will start shipping with support for 100MHz. So you're looking at a board that will last at least till AMD or Intel releases beyond a 850MHz CPU, not to even mention overclocking yet. Other settings that can be adjusted is the voltage which starts at 2.0v and can be incremented in 0.05v steps until you reach 2.4v (which by the way you should never go up to). Never fret though, if your settings turn out not to be bootable upon saving the BIOS and restarting, then just reboot again and all will be reverted back.

Als de force meezit zal Intel volgens The Register eind deze maand de eerste 133MHz FSB PIII's introduceren, in september gevolgd door de i820 chipset met support voor zowel PC133 als Direct Rambus geheugen:

Sources which in the course of their business have to be very close to Intel are reporting that 600MHz Pentium IIIs and 533MHz Pentium IIIs will arrive on August 23rd at prices of around $675 and $370 respectively.

According to other sources close to these plans, Intel will release its Vancouver motherboard early September using the 820 chipset to replace the SE440BX-2 Seattle mobo.

Intel will put jumpers on this mobo to allow machines to be configured to switch between RDRAM modules and PC-133 modules, the source said.

Sysop Solutions heeft een review gepost van de Tennmax TNT Detonator cooler. Zoals de naam doet vermoeden is dat dus een koelertje specifiek bedoelt voor Riva TNT kaarten:

This time packaging is very basic. The box the sink was shipped in came with the cooler itself and accompanying instructions. The heat sink design is very radical. The fan is recessed into the block which is comprised of layers of stamped metal formed as fins to allow for effective dissipation of heat. These fins are riveted together to form the shape of the sink. Generally the more surface area available to remove heat generated by the chip the more efficient the cooler works. As you can see there is lots of surface area here.

Sysop Solutions heeft ook een paar handige plaatjes waarin ze uitleggen hoe je de standaard TNT heatsink weg kunt slopen (dit schijnt redelijk eenvoudig te zijn, maar de heatsink van m'n eigen Dynamite TNT krijg ik er met geen mogelijkheid vanaf).

De Intel vs AMD oorlog is in volle gang: Chipzilla heeft Gateway, dat onlangs nog bekend maakte Athlon processors te willen gebruiken, 'omgekocht' zodat Gateway voorlopig 100% Intel Inside blijft:

Gateway described the move as "a pure business decision", which Forbes said meant Intel had waved a big discount carrot under Gateway’s nose, which the vendor obligingly ran after.

This soft dollar deal, and big discounts on 600 MHz Pentium II chips, are believed to have swung Gateway’s decision in what was thought to be a $20 million package. [break] Athlon support blijft echter sterk: Compaq, IBM en wellicht zelfs Dell bevinden zich al in het AMD kamp: [/break]

Compaq and IBM have already officially lent their support to the AMD chip. In the UK, leading system builders such as Time, Mesh and Dabs are backing Athlon.

Could there be any substance in the persistent rumours (which have surfaced online only in a couple of hardware sites)that 100 per cent Intel customer Dell could join the Athlon parade?

Check The Register voor het volledige nieuwsbericht.

Een nieuwe MP3 speler. Ditmaal eentje van het Koreaanse Daewoo.

And now more details about MPIO specs: Processor: 10MHz, 16bit CLSC 32MB integrated flash memory (available also with 64MB) SmartMedia card slot for memory expansion with 16 and 32MB cards Voice recording: ADPCM sound format, up to 50 tracks or 120 minutes (32MB integrated memory) Telephone book function: stores up to 250 phone numbers, displays them on the LCD screen Graphics LCD display (Rio and MPMan have segmented displays) Can be connected to the LPT port of your PC, the achievable data transfer rate is up to 1.3Mbit/sec. Signal-to-noise ratio: 90dB Earphones jack: 5mW x 2 Frequency range: 20~20KHz Power: 3V, two AAA size batteries (can be replaced by rechargeable batteries) Dimensions: 90 (H) x 66 (L) x 18 (W) mm Weight: 74 grams (without batteries and belt holster clip) So, looking at the specs we can notice a few absolutely new details for a portable player. The first thing that catches our eye when we take MPIO, is the built-in microphone and REC button. However, as soon as we turn the player on, it appears solely the LCD display that draws our attention. Wow, it is a real LCD display! It is not a segmented one as we saw by Rio or MPMan, but a true screen similar to that of a notebook, though it is a an LCD monochrome. But still, you can hardly deny that Daewoo has made a significant step forward.