Andy van BXBoards heeft een review van de allmighty Abit BP6 online gezet. Z'n conclusie lijkt me duidelijk:

Abit you guys rock! Quite simply this board is great for a number of reasons. Firstly it brings SMP to the masses and moves it from the bowels of the office fileserver onto the desktop. Secondly it cheekily gives two fingers to Intel who must be fuming right now. Frankly unless your server really needs SSE .. and what servers do?? then you can throw away that P3 server and do it on the cheap with a pair of Celerons and a BP6!. OK, so only Linux and NT users can benefit from SMP right now, but the board is so good that I would recommend this to anyone even if you only run one processor in it!

BetaOS heeft een artikeltje met info over toekomstige Microsoft operating systems, waaronder Millenium (Win 9x kernel), Neptune (NT kernel) en Janus (opvolger van Win2000). Toch weer leuk om te zien hoe men met 500 miljard aan zulke 'vreemde' codenaam kan komen (haal er een J vanaf en je hebt...) . Anyway, hier heb je wat info uit dat artikel:

The major upgrade for Windows 2000 is code-named Janus, a 64-bit operating-system upgrade that will support Intel's forthcoming Merced chip and incorporate major improvements to the Active Directory, according to sources at Fusion '99, a show attended by 3,700 Microsoft Certified Solutions Partners last weekend in San Francisco.

Janus is a far-bigger project than Millennium - Janus has been planned for a release six to eight months after the original Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Advanced Center hit the streets in the fourth quarter of 1999, but we all know that it will be quite a while before it is fully developed. No one actually even knows what it will look like ... but Microsoft has already outlined some of the major features of the Windows 2000 successor, Janus.

- Janus will enable administrators to merge separate forests, which are collections of domain trees, which, according to Microsoft will be a major enhancement.

- Janus will feature failover and load balancing between adapters.
- Janus will be much like the Windows 2000 Data Center will far much improvements.

The major features of Janus is aimed to support enterprise applications. With people such as David Cutler who designed VMS in the team for the Janus project, Microsoft is sure to go up against UNIX. Not only UNIX, but any of the competitors that may appear in the near future.

Volgens een artikel van EBN Online is er door het tekort aan BX en ZX chipsets een toenemende vraag onstaan naar VIA Apollo Pro chipsets met support voor PC133 SDRAM:

Via Technologies Inc., for one, has seen a sharp increase in sales of its next-generation PC133 core-logic chipsets, said Dean Hays, director of marketing for the Fremont, Calif.-based company. “It's made it an easy decision for buyers to skip Intel and jump on the PC133 bandwagon,” said Hays, whose company has openly waged war against Intel. [break] Dit vond ik zelf nogal grappig : [/break] Sources believed the short supply of BX and ZX chipsets was partially caused by Intel's own production transition to its next-generation 810, 810e, and 820 Camino chipsets. And Merritt questioned whether Intel orchestrated the production shift to pressure OEMs to move more quickly to the new chipsets.

As it has turned out, however, some computer makers appear to be doing the opposite, switching to the new PC133 chipsets from Via, Acer Labs, and other Taiwan-based suppliers.

Hehe, arme Intel...

Speedy 3D heeft een review van de Stealth V3 videoplaat cooler op z'n site geplant. Hier wat knipwerk uit de review:

The big question: Does it allow me to overclock my video card more? Yes!! Not as much as I was expecting but it still allows for it. Before I was able to successfully overclock my 125/150 tnt2 card to 135/160 and now I can overclock it to 150/175. Almost like an Ultra TNT2 for a fraction of the price. It was stable for the time I tested it but I cannot guarantee anything with your video card or even mine. The person who owns my video card may be able to overclock it higher or may not reach those speeds so I am not making any guarantees. The cooler also decreased the temp of the video card by around 10 degrees F which is excellent. That keeps all the connections on the video card cooler which allows them to run faster. This makes it easier to overclock your video card to new heights.

Een paar dagen geleden zagen we in een artikel van C|Net News.com een aantal reakties van analysten die overwegend pessimistisch verwachtingen hadden over de marktpositie van AMD. The Register vroeg een aantal Engelse PC bouwers naar de verkoopcijfers van Athlon systemen. De reakties zijn erg positief:

Said Sukh Rayat, managing director of Flashpoint, a major UK chip distributor: "I have to say we've seen significant revenues coming from the K7 already."

He claimed the Athlon is "taking the market by storm". Said Rayat: "We're very happy with sales and volumes and the next stage will be sell into the tier three and tier four market."

Luke Ireland, marketing director at Evesham Micro, said: "We're very happy with the way Athlon sales are going. I don't believe Intel has anything to match AMD in the near future. "

Ireland disclosed that AMD was getting much higher yields than 650MHz K7s and he confirmed Evesham is pleased with the volumes his company is receiving.

Check dit artikel van The Register voor meer info.

The Register heeft een artikel gepost met meer info over het tekort aan Intel BX en ZX chipsets. Het tekort kan grote gevolgen hebben voor PC en moederbord fabrikanten, zoals Abit:

"We were allotted about 60,000 chipsets by Intel," said Jeremy Smith of motherboard maker, Abit, "but we had requested about 200,000 [for this month], then after that there's nothing and we still need another 200,000. The discrepancy is huge."

Abit plans to send a delegation to Intel's US headquarters to discuss the situation soon, he added. Abit's maximum monthly output, which has been reached recently, is around 300,000 motherboards, Smith said. [break] Verder in het artikel reakties van Shuttle en AOpen. Aan conspiracy theoriën ook weer geen gebrek: Chin Wu, president van ALi, suggereert dat Intel de produktie van BX en ZX chipsets bewust heeft verlaagd, om zodoende produktie van i810 moederborden te pushen: [/break] Wu questioned the reasons for the continuing shortage, speculating that Intel may want motherboard manufacturers to start using the newer 810 chipset. The chipset has suffered technical problems, attracted criticism for poor performance, and been slow to win acceptance.

However, Intel has denied this and Jeremy Smith of Abit also disagreed. "We've been told by a contact at Intel that it's not that Intel's trying to force manufacturers over to the 810 and 820, but rather it was just a mis-forecasting... a misjudgment on their part."

In navolging van Quantum gaat ook bij Seagate reorganiseren. Als gevolg hiervan zullen 1600 banen verdwijnen. Oorzaak is de harde prijsoorlog in de harddisk markt:

Seagate Technology is to cut 1,600 staff in Singapore as part of its restructure.

The disk drive maker is reviewing its business globally and is set to make changes over the next few months.

A Seagate representative said this would involve reducing the company's headcount. No figure had been placed on the number of jobs to be cut, but Seagate is planning further announcements before the end of the current quarter - 2 October.

Meer info vind je in dit nieuwsbericht van The Register.

Terwijl nVidia vorige week erg vrolijke tweede kwartaals cijfers bekend maakte ($78 miljoen omzet, $6,7 miljoen winst) gaat het met 3dfx iets minder goed. Ondanks een bijna verdubbelde omzet werd een verlies van 11,6 miljoen dollar geleden. Hier heb je wat geblah uit de press release:

Revenues for the second quarter ended July 31, 1999 were $104,836,000, as compared to total revenues of $58,643,000 for the second quarter of fiscal 1998 ended June 30, 1998. Net losses for the second quarter were ($11,599,000), or ($.50) per diluted share when 23,296,000 shares were used in the per diluted share calculation. This compares with net income of $9,032,000 or $.54 per diluted share in the second quarter of fiscal 1998 ended June 30, 1998 when 16,763,000 shares were used in the per diluted share calculation. Included in the quarter ended July 31, 1999 was the amortization of goodwill as well as a one-time charge for the write-off of in-process research and development associated with the mid-May merger with STB.

Revenues for the six months ended July 31, 1999 were $145,280,000 as compared to revenues of $108,651,000 for the six months ended June 30, 1998. Net losses for the six months ended July 31, 1999 were ($13,783,000) or ($.71) per diluted share as compared to net income of $16,494,000 or $1.04 per diluted share for the six month period ended June 30, 1998. The number of diluted shares used in the per diluted share calculation was 19,533,000 shares and 15,909,000 shares for the six months ended July 31, 1999 and June 30, 1998, respectively.

``It is unfortunate that the merger with STB was not consummated until mid-May as opposed to the end of April as planned. That delay prevented us from including Voodoo3 board sales for the first fourteen days of May in our quarterly revenue numbers, although we think those revenues rightfully should have been included,'' said Greg Ballard, President and CEO. ``Despite this, we were still able to post record revenues for the quarter.'' [break] News.com heeft een artikeltje over deze kwestie: [/break] A little over a year ago the 3D computer title belonged to 3dfx, which could boast a legion of ultra-loyal gaming customers. However, at the time, the company was in the process of shifting to a strategy to play in all segments of the graphics market, not just the high-performance PC segment. Part of shift involved buying board maker STB.

The transition has not been perfectly smooth. The company's Banshee chip for mid-range computers was delayed until late last year, which took the company out of the running for some major computer contracts. More recently, the STB acquisition took longer than expected and affected the bottom line this quarter, the company said. In the meantime, other companies caught up in terms of 3D performance.

As a result of the transition, 3dfx has seen revenues nearly double from $58.9 million to $104.8 million but income decline from $9 million to losses of $11.6 million. Even if one-time charges for STB are excluded, the losses come to $4.3 million for the fiscal quarter that ended July 31.

Ars Technica heeft z'n Celeron Overclocking FAQ van een update voorzien. Check 't hier.

Evil Avatar heeft een kleine preview gepost van Grand Theft Auto 2. De game staat gepland voor een release in oktober, en zal uiteraard net zo geweldadig worden als zijn voorganger. Hier heb je een gedeelte van de storyline, lees verder.

After waking up from many years enforced cryogenic sleep you have escaped from a prison you can’t remember being locked up in or for what crime. Who put you to sleep? Who cares, you’re body feels like a used condom and you’re still in this urban hell hole. The only thing you know is that every bad guy has got worse, new gangs have appeared from nowhere and all your old privileges don’t mean shit. Get some drugs to keep yourself sane then start working again to get out of the city at any cost. Every man for themself, because no one is going to do you any favours.

Find out who runs the show, how well they pay and be prepared to swap allegiances like hats. No crime is to bad and if there’s casualties on the way to bad, remember it’s them or you and they’ll never be sipping daiquiri’s on the beach besides a mountain of Columbia’s finest.

Hier zijn alvast wat screens, er is ook een filmpie neer te laden. (550kB)

Ik kwam bij Betanews deze hap info tegen over Mandrake Linux Panoramix, waarmee het installeren van Linux een koekje zou moeten worden:

Are you under the myth that Linux is too hard to install? That you're not "advanced" enough to even attempt it? Well Mandrake is setting out to blow the remaining believers in that myth away with their new beta called Panoramix. Panoramix is a graphical installation program written in Perl. It comes with DiskDrake, a graphical hard drive partitioning tool for those who don't like the rigidness of fdisk. If you've been putting Linux off because of installation fears, you don't have an excuse anymore. Panoramix enables users to install Linux-Mandrake per CDRom or network, and counts several use-levels to allow new comer, as well as hackers to easily install Linux. Panoramix also implemented a new powerful kickstart mode from Red Hat that enables users to quickly install Linux on several identical machines. Panoramix has been designed to be the fastest easiest to use, and more powerful graphical installation in the Linux market.

Ik kwam bij Ace's Hardware een paar lekker geruchten tegen over nieuwe ALi en VIA chipsets. Allereerst zal de ALi Aladdin V chipset van UDMA/66 support voorzien zijn:

For those who are wondering about UDMA-66 support in ALI's Aladdin V chipset, you need not worry more. I have heard from a very reliable source that "The Aladdin V M1543C Southbridge does support UDMA-66 in its newer versions." This is about time because rival VIA has already implemented UDMA-66 in its SuperSouthbridge for a while now, and the latest revision of the regular MVP3 Southbridge should also have UMDA-66 support. I guess no w it is up to the motherboard makers to use the newer Southbridge chips. [break] Verder zijn er geruchten dat ALi een nieuwe super socket7 chipset gaat uitbrengen, die support voor 133MHz FSB met zich mee zal brengen: [/break] Now another exciting news bit that I heard from this source is that ALI is planning a new SS7 chipset that should come out by Q4. The new chipset will feature 133-Mhz FSB support! I hope that means AMD will also introduce then K6-X parts that officially run at 133 Mhz FSB. There is one thing though that worries me: this new ALI chipset maybe an integrated chipset like MVP4 but not "stand-alone" chipset like ALI V. The reason being ALI is working closely with NVIDIA now on new integrated chipsets, and they have yet to announce a SS7 produc that can compete directly with VIA's MVP4 and SiS's 530. I will hopefully be able to find out more about this new chipset and I will definitely keep you all posted. [break] En tenslotte hebben we nog VIA, die een Athlon chipset in ontwikkeling zou hebben met support voor de nieuwe UltraATA/100 standaard: [/break] As to Idiot's comments below that "VIA's future southbridge supporting ATA-100 should be a nice addition on K7 boards since the disk drive industry will likely support the ATA100 standard. . . ", I have heard rumors that VIA indeed does have such a chipset in the works already for Athlon, and the name will be KX-200 (as opposed to the currently KX133). Bear in mind that this is at best a rumor at this point, so don't get too excited over it. If however you have information that can confirm the rumor, please do not hesistate to email me about it.

En KX-200 staat dan voor 200MHz (DDR?) SDRAM support?

Ik kwam bij HardOCP ook nog info tegen over verandert socket370 ontwerp van Intel. Ik heb dit allemaal niet gevolgd, maar volgens de mening van een HardOCP lezer zou dit tot gevolg kunnen hebben dat de Celeron van z'n SMP pinnetjes wordt ontdaan:

"If you will look at the attached Intel docs you will see that a "flip chip" design is already in place in the socket 370's, thus putting the silicon at the top of the chip. ( this is classic Intel marketing, advertise existing features as new.) It does replace the lead frame, and provide better noise.. blah blah blah. But. will not change the pin outs, nor will they emerge from the center of the CPU packaging. Even in direct pin out solutions, like these ones, there is still a bonding process which must take place. The " Pins " which come off the die are usually far to small to mount in a socket, I mean these are REALLY tiny. SO they mount in a sort of mini socket so to speak which is bonded to the packaging pins. This means two things, one.... No more SMP with this retool, SMP is sure to get the axe. ( unless Intel keeps it in there to promote low cost high end performance, to steal k7 sales.) two.... yes, your old boards will work, the pin outs will (most likely) not change."

Overclockers' Workbench heeft info over een nieuwe slot1 plank van MegaStar (ooit van gehoord?). Naast de standaard 66/75/83MHz busspeeds ondersteund het settings van 100 tot 150MHz in 1MHz stappen!:

The MEGASTAR M/B T6D3 has 66 75 83 and 100-152 MHz FSB!!! And can be select from 100-152 MHz in 1 MHz step. It also suportt U/DMA 66, ARM slot, Soft Menu to set FSB, Vcore adjust +0.1 and 0.2, and mush more.

- VIA 693DD + 686A Chipset, system more stable.
- Intel Pentium III 550+ CPU, speedy!!! stable!
- Bus Clock support 6675/83/, and can adjust 100-152MHz by each MHz !
- Support Maximum 8x Multiplier
- Auto Detection of Voltage, providing +0.1V and +0.2V Vcore Voltage Selection
- Build-in 4 x USB connector
- Support?U/DMA 66 Hard disk
- Onboard AC97 Sound Chip and AMR Slot!
- Onboard Turbo 100/133 Overclock Magic Jumper

Hmm, wil die 'VIA 693DD' chipset zeggen dat er géén BX op zit? De P6 chipsets van VIA zijn nogal brak...

Volgens een artikel van Forbes zal nVidia de NV10 volgende week op het Intel Developers Forum officieel aankondigen:

According to sources familiar with the company, Nvidia will announce its next-generation NV-10 chip on August 31 at Intel Developers Forum at Palm Springs, Calif.

Forbes.com has learned that NV-10 is nearly four times as powerful as the RIVA TNT-2 chip, Nvidia’s current best seller. Nvidia is likely to sell NV-10 for upwards of $50 a chip and is targeting the low-end workstation market, having already signed up Elsa to produce the graphic boards.

ComChip heeft een review online van de Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u 19" monitor. Hier is een gedeelte, lees de rest hier.

Lets cover the BORING stuff first. The 900u is Mitsubishi's premier 19" monitor and is equipped with a DIAMONDTRON NF (Natural Flat) CRT that boasts a 0.25 mm center and 0.27 mm edge aperture grill pitch. For those of you (like me) who don't like numbers, this translates into nice, sharp text. Even 5 point text is readable on this display. The monitor can handle up to 1600 x 1200 at 75Hz, which is about on par with the other 19" monitors out there. In fact, would anyone even want to run higher resolutions on a 19"? The 900u also features a USB self-powered hub with two upstream and three downstream ports. Nice if you use them, personally, I don't. A nice little extra included in the box is a Mac adapter for those poor souls stuck with THOSE computers (just kidding). Saves a couple of bucks and the adapter has DIP switches on them for added convenience.

As previously stated, the image quality of this monitor is simply astounding compared to my last monitor. It's basically night and day. The images are crisp and clear, and the colours stand out and are vibrant. The first time I turned the monitor on, I was awestruck. One thing that all aperture grill monitors have that may be of some annoyance are two thin, horizontal lines going across the display. These are fine wires and the Mitsubishi can't be penalized for having them. Games come alive on this monitor, but DVD's are just astounding. I'll never watch a DVD on my TV again. Just can't take the flat, washed out colours. One thing I should mention is that the monitor has a completely flat screen. First time I saw it, I thought it was concave. Great for impressing friends.

Computer Games Online heeft een review gebakken van de nieuwe IntelliMouse Explorer. Nou dit is een erg hippe muis, want ipv een bal heeft-ie een radar aan boord die zijn positie bepaald, ofzo
Check de review hier.

The new IntelliMouse is an optical mouse, which is a technology that has been around for a while. Previous optical mice had to be used on a special reflective mouse pad, though, and the Microsoft product requires no pad at all. It doesn't even require a flat surface. The little red "eye" on the bottom takes thousands of really close-in snapshots of the surface you're working on, and compares them to determine mouse movement. You can use the mouse on your desk, a book, your pants leg, your neighbor, etc. And it works perfectly, at a resolution of about 400dpi! There is a catch, of course. You can't use the mouse on a glass table or mirror, or a surface that is incredibly clean, smooth, and reflective on a microscopic level. At least, not without putting a piece of paper on it first. The oversized mouse is very comfortable with a lot of hand contact, and movement is natural and accurate. Also, it will operate on both standard PS/2 mouse parts and as a USB device.

Impress your friends with your cool silver mouse

The IntelliMouse Explorer adds two thumb buttons to the standard "two buttons and wheel button" design of the previous IntelliMouse, which by default function as "back" and "forward" buttons in Windows. They won't register in a game that way, but if you use the included software to set them as another key like "alt" or "ctrl" you can use them in your favorite game. The problem with using it for games, though, is that it perhaps works a bit too well. The eye will see the surface you're working on and move the mouse even when it's ever so slightly raised. So when you move it right, lift it to bring it left and set it down again, and move it right some more, you'll actually get some left movement in the process that you didn't want. With a little practice you can train yourself to lift the mouse a little higher when you move it, but it's likely to annoy you in the middle of a fierce multiplayer game.

Hard OCP heeft een berichtje binnen gekregen met wat info over Abit's Camino / i820 plank, de CX6:

"I know I hate rumors too, but this one came from October issue of Computer Shopper UK (Dabs Direct Ad).

ABIT CX6 ATX Form Factor Slot 1 Mainboard, Intel i820 AGPset, Full support for both 100Mhz and 133Mhz FSB Intel CPU's, 3 RIMM sockets, 1 AGP 4x Slot, 5 PCI Slots, 0 ISA Slots, (Damn!) PC99 Compliant." [break]Verder heeft The Register ook een bericht over de release date van deze Camino chipset van Intel. Deze zou eind volgende maand moeten komen: [/break] When we reported a week or so back that Dabs Direct was listing a PIII .18 Coppermine chip available at the end of next month, our local Intel rep responded by saying it was probably a typo. (Story: PIII/600 with 133MHz FSB outed!!!)

We now admit it may well have been a typo. It should have been the 27th of September. According to the excellent roadmap over at Roan's, which we confess we haven't spotted before, the release date for the Cumine beastie is the 27th September.

In an email, Roan says his information is highly reliable. His information is that Intel will release 600-700MHz parts, with 256KB cache, Screaming Sindy extensions and using a 133MHz FSB in a Slot One format on that date.

Next week, Intel is expected to announce how it will square the SDRAM-Direct Rambus circle. ®

Over bij Computer Games Online hebben ze een van de eerste reviews van het spel Drakan: Order of the Flame. Het spel is in de USA al verkijgbaar, in Europa moeten we nog 2 weekjes wachten... Voor de review, klik hier.

You control the main character, a beautiful woman named Rynn, on the ground and, after completing a few early quests, Arokh, the dragon she bonds with, in the air. Unlike many games with multiple modes of transportation, Drakan manages to get the control for each character right. Both modes use the exact same control scheme, and are simple and smooth. While the air-to-air dragon combat is decent, mostly consisting of circle-strafing, the ground combat is superb. Surprisingly subtle, it allows you to play in a more brute-force manner by sticking with the basic attacks, but rewards more skilled arcade-oriented players by allowing special combo moves.

There are tons of great weapons, with almost all taking damage and eventually breaking. Each is modeled for its speed-of-attack and length, forcing you either to alter your fighting style based on your weapon or juggle weapons suited to your style. At least that's the theory, but the enemy AI is mediocre enough that you can usually keep on the move and avoid getting hit (it has a terrible time leading the player). The perception of the monster AI is also diminished by generally poor pathing and the fact most creatures seem trigger driven (that is, they tend to stand around until you do something). Despite these problems, the combat is exciting and often quite challenging. Plus it's incredibly violent, with lots of nasty beasts dying in hysterically funny and violent ways (check out the goblins that get chopped in half and twitch for a moment before slumping over).

Ik lees bij Voodoo Extreme dat Asus een nieuwe versie (2.03) van haar Asus V3800 Tweak proggie gereleased heeft. Nieuw in deze versie is de mogelijkheid om je Asus TNT2 Ultra tot max. 190MHz te klokken, ipv 160MHz.

Je kunt hem hier downloaden.

CPU Review heeft haar Athlon / Pentium 3 prijs vergelijkings atrikeltje ge-update, vanwege de recente pijsverlagingen aan de kant van Intel. Check het artikel voor meer tabellen en grafiekjes.

% Cost Difference at PriceWatch

Prices as of 8/23/99	Athlon qt 1 PriceWatch	Pentium3 qt 1 PriceWatch	AMD Price - Intel Price	AMD Price / Intel Price
500Mhz	$264.00	$245.00	+$19.00	1.08
550Mhz	$464.00	$467.00	-$3.00	0.99
600Mhz	$635.00	$632.00	+$3.00	1.00

The Athlon is approximately 8% more expensive than the Pentium 3 at 500Mhz, about 1% cheaper at 550Mhz, and only 0.5% more expensive at 600Mhz!

Ik lees dat Creative Labs nieuwe drivers en tevens een nieuwe bios voor haar Banshee kaart online heeft gezet.

De drivers bevatten:
- BIOS v1.03.2d, drivers v1.10
- Support for AMD's 3DNow! features
- Improved control for memory clock setting and allows optimal refresh rate to be set when running at 800x600 resolution in Windows 98
- Allow proper installation with plug & play monitor.

De nieuwe bios lost het eventuele probleem op dat Internet Explorer 4 en 5 soms vastlopen bij bepaalde websites.

De drivers en bios kun je hier downloaden.

System Optimization heeft een grote (19 pagina's !!) review van 4 videokaarten voor een budget-systeem. Iedereen heeft het over de VooDoo3, de TNT2 en de G400, maar veel mensen hebben zoveel power niet nodig en willen ook niet zoveel geld besteden aan een videokaart. Door de komst van de nieuwe generatie worden deze, al wat oudere, kaarten een stuk aantrekkelijker voor de prijsbewuste koper.
Getest worden de Diamond Viper 550 en Monster Fusion, de Hercules Terminator Beast SC en de STB Velocity V4400.

The buzz these days in 3D graphics cards is the Nvidia RivaTNT2 Ultra, the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV, the Matrox Millenium G400 MAX, and to a lesser extent, the S3 Savage4. There is even a lot of talk about the future - the Nvidia NV10, the 3dfx Voodoo4, and the ever-anticipated, often-doubted Bitboys Oy Glaze3D. Yet, in all of this remains one constant: money, and lots of it. Almost no TNT2 Ultra, Voodoo3 3500TV and G400 MAX can be bought for less than $200, putting this out of reach for many people on a tighter budget. So where can all these people turn, scorned by the prices of the latest and the greatest? To those cards everyone has now forgotten - the RivaTNT, the Savage3D, and the Voodoo Banshee. [break]De winnaar is, niet verrassend, de goeie ouwe TNT.[/break] For the value shopper, the RivaTNT is the best chipset, but the Voodoo Banshee shouldn't be ignored, especially for those that have several Glide games. There has been such little demand for any of these cards recently that quite frequently they can be had at great prices. There have been a great many produced and out on the market. Even though stocks are now low in these cards, they can often be found at some great prices with vendors trying to clear shelves to stock items that are in greater demand. If you are looking for a video card, don't ignore any of these products, and now you have their features and limitations in mind.

Weinig schokkende info dus, maar als je voor een al wat oudere PC een goede videokaart zoekt of geen geld hebt voor een TNT2 o.i.d is dit artikel het zeker waard om te lezen. Volg deze link.

Reactor Critical heeft een review van een nieuwe ATI kaart, de Xpert 2000. Dit kaartje draagt 32MB mee, maar de performance is (no surprise here) vanwege de Rage 128 VR chip met een 64-bit memory bus lekker laag gehouden. Check de review hier.

ATI is the first company that released a sub-$100 32Mb board. Using that large amount of memory is undoubtedly a marketing step - the Rage 128 VR with its quite low speed suits only for medium resolutions (max. 800x600x16) and additionally performs slowly in 32-bits because of the narrow 64-bit memory bus. That's why in this class of boards the optimum memory size is 16Mb.

The Xpert 2000 is not a very speedy board but has a perfect DVD support. That's the fact that at least somehow equalizes the board with other sub-$100 competitors. In the end I have to say that production boards may happen to work at higher frequencies.

De Japanners blijven bezig met het overklokken van de Athlon. Na een 500 Mhz naar 550 gekregen te hebben en een 600 naar 650 is het nu gelukt een 500 Mhz-versie op 650 Mhz te krijgen.
Daar was wel het nodige handwerk voor nodig...
Op deze onduidelijke Japanse site staan wat foto's en screenshots. Omdat mijn Japans niet al te sterk is (en dat is een understatement) kan ik van de tekst niks maken maar bij The Register hebben ze wel wat info:

Our Lernout & Hauspie machine software puffed and blew a bit over the technical terms, but it seems that to achieve the overclock, the engineer fiddled around the Athlon's so called "golden fingers" and even got his drill out. He appears to have changed a set of resistors on the microprocessor. The so-called "golden fingers" are a couple of contacts on the microprocessor which allow for overclocking. Third parties are expected to announce gizmos for this purpose very soon. If you have a K7 Athlon, we recommend you do not try this at home...

Hier alvast een paar plaatjes.

De 3DMark score liegt er ook niet om...

Sharky heeft de Fujitsu MPD3182AH en de Quantum Fireball KA met elkaar vergeleken. Deze 18.2 Gb, UDMA-66 schijven behoren tot de grootste en snelste schijven in hun soort. De Quantum staat bekend om zijn razendsnelle toegangstijd terwijl de Fujitsu een hoge doorvoersnelheid heeft. Een close-finish dus.

Verder wordt voorspeld dat de HD-prijzen wel weer eens zouden kunnen stijgen als gevolg van de uitputtende prijzenslag van de afgelopen maanden.

With hard drive prices at an all time low and technology growing at an alarming rate, it is only a matter of time before we see the same thing we recently saw in the RAM industry. Prices can't be this low for long and we have already seen many of these companies announce layoffs in the past few months. It may not be long before prices jump towards $20 / Gigabyte. So as the new UDMA/66 standard emerges and while drive prices are low, it may be time to seriously consider a purchase. The winner of this face off, the Fujitsu MPD3182-AH, while not well known, is certainly a leader of its class.

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