Ik kwam via Ace's Hardware bij deze site van Paul Hsieh, waar een behoorlijk heftig artikeltje staat waarin de architectuur van de AMD Athlon, Intel Pentium III en Compaq Alpha 21264 worden vergeleken. Laat ik er een stukje uit prikken:

There has been a lot of talk about the K7's floating point capability. Especially given the poor reputation of Intel's x86 competitors on floating point. The interest in the K7's floating point probably overshadowed any other feature.

I think AMD knew they had to deliver on floating point or forever suffer the backlash of the raving lunatics that would be denied their Quake frame rate being pegged at the monitor's refresh rate. And there is no question that AMD has delivered. On top of being fully pipelined (the P6 is partially pipelined when performing multiplies) AMD had the gaul to make a superscalar FPU. I would have thought that this was impossible given the horribly constipated x87 instruction set, but I was shocked to find that its really possible to execute well above one floating point operations per clock (on things like multiply accumulates.) [break] Paul concludeert: [/break] Taken in total, the number of improved features of the K7 over previous generation processors leaves little doubt that in fact the K7 is truly a 7th generation processor. You don't have to take my word for it though. There are plent of reviews that show benchmark after benchmark with the K7 absolutely creaming the contemporary P6. So 7th generation it is.

Als je trek hebt in geleuter over FSTORE's, FXCH's, ALU's en meer van dat soort grappen, dan zou ik dit artikeltje ff gaan lezen.

Creative Labs heeft een press release gepost over hun nieuwe Soundblaster Live! kaarten. Release dates worden niet bekend gemaakt, wel wordt er iets meer info gegeven over de features van de SBLive! Platinum en SBLive! Player Digital:

'--INTRO--

Coming soon, are the Sound Blaster Live! Value DIGITAL and Sound Blaster Live! Player; two of the latest sound cards which are to be the first wave of new sound products from Creative.

---Let's put it in perspective!!!---

Sound Blaster Live! and Live! Value will be soon phased out in the coming months leading to Xmas, making way for a new range of sound cards from Creative. The top of the range Sound Blaster Live! will be eventually replaced by the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum and the Sound Blaster Live! Value will be replaced by the Sound Blaster Live! Value DIGITAL.

---The Platinum Difference?---

The SBLive! Platinum is still a long way from release so don't expect it too soon, however the beginner version is known as the Sound Blaster Live! Player and is expected to be released quite soon. As reports go for now, the SBLive! Player is identical to the SB Live! Platinum BUT doesn't include the Live!Bay (Live!Bay is a 5.25" Bay drive cover with all the digital connections. It's similar to what is found on the front case of the current BlasterPC.)

---What's SBLive! Value Digital then?---

Generally it's the standard Sound Blaster Live! Value card with an extra output on the back plate. The idea is that the digital cable which comes in the SoundWorks FPS2000 speakers, can be finally connected to an affordable sound card with a digital output.

---How Does it Go Again?--

Top Sound Card to promote for Xmas - Sound Blaster Live! Platinum = That's the Platinum Sound Card with the Live!Bay. Remember this is available later in the year.

--To be released this month--

Sound Blaster Live! Player = Which is just the Platinum card without Live!Bay.(Digital connections that take up the 5.25" drive bay) Also to be released this month - Sound Blaster Live! Value Digital - the companion sound card for our Digital speakers.

---Up and Coming Accessories for the new range---

1)Live!Bay - upgrades the SBLive! Player to the Platinum. Allows all the digital connections to be accessible from the front of the PC by using a spare drive bay.

2)Digital Output Module or DOM - provides additional digital outs for SB Live! Value owners.'

Positief nieuws voor de G3 gebruikers die wel eens met hardware heen en weer slepen: MacOS Rumors heeft uit betrouwbare bron vernomen dat Apple de anti-G4 upgrade blokkering weer weg gaat slopen. The Register heeft het nieuws:

According to Mac-oriented Web site MacOS Rumors, "reliable" Apple sources have said the company is now planning to fix the block on PowerPC 7400 (aka G4) upgrades in a future firmware update for the blue'n'white Power Mac G3.

That block was introduced in the last update, taking the G3's boot EPROM from version 1.0 to 1.1, and prevents the computer from starting up if the user has installed a PPC7400 CPU upgrade card.

MacOS Rumors' sources claim Apple only made the move to prevent all those sneaky CPU upgrade merchants offering Motorola's latest processor before it was able. A fair point, but you have to wonder, about a company that feels it can't offer a more compelling PPC7400-based PC than a G4 upgrade card, especially when anyone in the market for that card isn't going to buy a new Power Mac G4 because their blue'n'white G3 isn't yet a year old.

Volgens The Register zijn (japanse) analysten skeptisch over de Sony Playstation. Sony's doelstelling om 2 miljoen Playstations af te zetten zou niet haalbaar zijn. Verder zouden er problemen kunnen ontstaan bij de ontwikkeling en produktie van de Emotion Engine CPU:

In what sounds suspiciously like pro-Sega spin, a handful of Japanese analysts today cast doubt on Sony's ability to deliver its much-anticipated PlayStation II 128-bit games console on time.

According to Reuters, one Takashi Mimura, an analyst at Societe Generale, said: "The production of new chips is a challenge for Sony, which is inexperienced in graphic chips. I'd say Sony's target of selling two million new PlayStations by the end of next March is ambitious.

"Sales won't reach even half of that," he warned.

Check dit nieuwsbericht van The Register voor meer info.

Bij The Register staat een bericht over de nieuwe DiamondMax schijven van Maxtor. Ze zullen in oktober in produktie gaan en tot 40.9Gb aan capaciteit bevatten. Hier een gedeelte uit het nieuwsbericht.

The new DiamondMax 40 has up to 10.2GB per disk, for up to 40.9GB in a four-platter configuration. It has average seek time of under 9ms, a 2MB buffer incorporating a high-speed 100MHz SDRAM memory, and is capable of transfer rates of 66MBps. Maxtor claims this is the highest capacity per platter in the mainstream desktop systems market.

The DiamondMax VL 20 now has 10, 15 and 20GB capacity drives available, to pad out the budget product line. Its seek time is a little slower at 9.5ms, and it has a 512KB cache buffer.

The little monsters go into production in October. Estimated retail prices for the DiamondMax 40.9GB is $349 and the 20.4GB VL is $229.

3D Rage heeft een vergelijking online tussen de Diamond MX300 (Vortex2) en de Soundblaster Live! (EAX). CPU utilization en performance verschillen zijn erg klein, dus uiteindelijk komt het dan toch neer op persoonlijke keuzes en gebruikerseisen.
Anyway, het artikel staat hier.

Both cards do a superb job in creating 3D positional audio. While the SB Live uses it’s own ‘in house’ technology (EAX), the MX300 uses A3D 2.0 positional audio. Both drivers have been well in the works. Since their releases, the Live had horrid support for NT, and the MX300 was very choppy in stability. Yet, both cards have been on the market, and have been developed over time. It is safe to say that the drivers are at their peak right now. As far as the 3D positional audio is concerned, both are a great choice. The MX300 seemed to create a more virtualized 3D sound. Using two speakers with the MX300 clearly showed its strong point. However, to fully ‘feel’ the power of 3D positional audio, a quad speaker set is a must have. With the SB Live, the positional sound was clearly depicted. When manually moving the position of a sound with the SB Live, it could be very nicely heard through the four point surround sound speakers. The MX300’s 3D positional sound was a bit more convincing. Allowing the free movement of sound in a ‘virtual room,’ I was clearly able to hear the items ‘flying past me’ from one side of the room to another. Overall, both cards have their strong points in 3D positional sound. I would not say one is better than the other, since it is all a matter of opinion, and we all know what that means.

Speedy 3D heeft een volledig verslag op zijn site gemikt van de ECTS beurs te Londen. In plaats van er 1 ding uit te pikken zal ik hier even de inhoud neer kwakken, met alleen de belangrijkste dingen gelinkt. De links naar de andere stukken staan allemaal hier.

-Half-Life: Opposing Forces
-Incoming: Forces
-TeamFortress2
-Unreal Tournament
-Quake 3 Arena
-C&C: Renegade
-Warcraft3
-StarSiege: Tribes2
-Delta Force2
-Hostile Waters
-Off Road
-The Death Race 2000 (Carmageddon 2)
-Star Trek: New Worlds
-Star Trek: Klingon Academy
-MDK2
-Messiah
-Freespace2
-Giants
-Warmonkeys & Iron Strategy -Dreamcast -a brief look
-Final ECTS Report
-GeForce256 sneak peak
-VFX3D vr Helmet
-Sexy women!

Ook Asus heeft wat info losgelaten over zijn GeForce 256 based videokaart genaamd de V6600. Volgens Asus zal deze begin oktober verkrijgbaar zijn. Hier heb je vast wat features van de V6600:

- AGP-V6600 Exert complete graphics performance and fidelity regardless of CPU
- Powered with the world’s first GPU - GeForce256TM
- Integrated Transform and Lighting engine -- frees up CPU bandwidth
- 256-bit QuadPipeTM rendering - delivers industry fastest graphics performance
- AGP 4X with Fast Write - maximizes overall system performance
- High-quality HDTV video playback - delivers highest video quality
- Complete support for DirectX* 7 and OpenGL* features - ensures most applications

- Models available:

1. AGP-V6600 : GeForce256TM, 32MB SDRAM, VGA
2. AGP0V6600 Deluxe : GeForce256TM, 64MB SDRAM, VGA, TV-out, Video-in, VR 3D glasses [break]Hm, het ziet er dus naar uit dat Asus er hier ook een brilletje bij gooit. Er staan trouwens ook een paar vraagjes met Asus op AGN over deze kaart en de GeForce 256 in het algemeen, hier heb je er een paar:[/break] Q: What is the target estimated selling price for a 32MB board?
A: We estimate that 32MB boards should be available for under $300 SRP.

Q: What is the maximum amount of frame buffer available on the GeForce 256?
A: Up to 128MB of local frame buffer is supported.

Het hele zaakie kun je in de news sectie van AGN 3D terug vinden.

Bij de hardware afdeling van Voodoo Extreme hebben ze een vanilla TNT2 tegenover een TNT2 M64 gezet. De laatste is in feite een TNT2, alleen hij heeft maar een 64 bits databus ipv 128. De geteste kaarten zijn overigens allebei van MSI, (dat bedrijf met die gare Athlon borden). Check het artikel hier.

I’m not going to tell you if you should buy a M64 or not. You’ve seen the numbers; it depends on what you want out of a system. Obviously, if you want cutting edge, you don’t want either of these cards - a TNT2 Ultra is the best out there right now, as far as 32bit acceleration goes. If you're willing to wait, the upcoming GeForce256, S3 Savage2000, 3dfx’s T-Buffer-sporting part, and (assuming it’s for real) the Glaze3D, will all absolutely destroy the numbers crafted by these units. As for these specific cards, the same thing goes. If you want a TNT2, there are others that do it better than the MS-8806. Unfortunately, those that do it better, do it for more money. This is still a TNT2, and it still runs like one, just don’t expect Ultra-level performance, ‘cause you won’t be seeing it. I would have liked to see a better cooling solution, as the fan that comes with it has a laughably small heatsink portion, and is not mounted with any form of heat transfer material. MSI's suggested retail price is nothing to get wet about, but I'm sure that its street price will be among the lowest there is - especially for the non-TV-out version. As for the MS-8808 - well, if you decide on a M64, this piece pushes nVidia’s underachieving chip about as hard as it ever will go. The 7ns RAM is very impressive, for 7ns RAM, but had they used 6ns or even 6.5ns memory it would have been even better, and I'm sure that somewhere out there a M64 with faster RAM can be found. Also, in many situations, the 8808's dry-mounted passive cooling might not be adequate - if you don't have air moving around your AGP slot, a heatsink just won't cut it. But, after a quick search on PriceWatch, I can tell you that no other M64 will is as affordable as the MS-8808 - assuming you can get your hands on one. And when you're talking about a M64, price is the most important factor.

Een nieuw overklok wonder? Volgens Terry van Hardware Extreme is de PIII-450 SL35D in feite een onderklokte PIII-600 zijn, beide chips zijn voorzien van 4ns L2 caches:

As you should most probably know, Intel is already going to discontinue the PIII 450 & 500 real soon. Despite their quick phase out of the once popular flagship processors to make way for the later 133MHz models - the demand for the PIII 450 is still high. To solve this problem, Intel is currently downclocking (can't think of a better word) their PIII 600 chips to a 4.5X multiplier to make PIII 450s.

The SL35D PIII 450 I have just recieved is of the same kin. It shares the same SEC 4ns L2 cache as it's 600MHz brother. I managed to get it to boot into Windows 98 at 600MHz without a heatsink/fan! Well... It wasn't really stable as you might have guessed but hey - NO COOLING!

So what does this all mean? It basically means that we will soon be able to ditch out some 600MHz action flawlessly from the PIII 450 models if you manage to get hold of one of these "downclocked" PIIIs. I hope this will come in handy for you to share with all your visitors. Remember that the stepping is SL35D. Before running out and getting one though, check to see that it has 4ns SEC L2 Cache!

Coolinfo heeft een nieuwsposting over de USB 2.0 standaard, die naar alle waarschijnlijkheid een geduchte concurrent voor FireWire gaat worden:

Like an unloved house plant, IEEE 1394--the high-speed peripheral serial bus also known as FireWire--appears to be dying on the vine as Intel nourishes instead Universal Serial Bus (USB) as the best low-cost solution for attaching peripherals to PCs. In October, at Intel's USB developer conference in San Diego, the chip giant is expected to release the final specification for USB 2.0 which will, it now appears, have an equivalent performance to IEEE 1394. USB is expected to perform in the 360- to 480-megabits-per-second range (or up to 60 megabytes per second), while current shipping versions of IEEE 1394 perform at 400 mbps.

"[IEEE] 1394 deployment into the PC platform has proceeded more slowly than expected," said an Intel document (see link at right).

One key factor in the "slower than expected" deployment of IEEE 1394 may be that the bus is not supported by Intel in its own core logic chips. According to Jason Ziller, platform marketing manager for Intel, the company has no plans at this time to support 1394 in the chip set.

The Intel Web site also cited "uncertainties about cost and licensing" for lack of IEEE 1394 adoption. The licensing and cost issues revolve around Apple. As the owner of the IEEE 1394 patent, Apple must be paid a licensing fee for use of the 1394 bus, according to one peripheral manufacturer who asked not to be identified. Last year Intel cited video conferencing systems, high resolution scanners, and printers and auxiliary data storage as devices that would benefit from the IEEE 1394 bus, but this year the company is citing the same peripherals for use with USB 2.0.

Overclockers' Workbench heeft een klein artikeltje online geschopt waarin ze nog even uitleggen hoe je je Pentium 3 (zij gebruikten een p3-450) kunt overklokken, met behulp van Abit SoftMenu II. Klik hier voor het hele artikel.

Okay, now you have a OEM P3... skip to the next step. The rest of you who bought a retail P3can continue reading. The only problem with retail CPUs is that it's bloody difficult to remove the covering so what do you do?? The easiest way is to fit the case screw into the pin holes. Remember that there are 4 pin holes so fit the case screw into one and press down HARD but firmly. You would hear a click and the case screw would be embedded in the covering. Remove it and do it the same with the rest. It's that simple. If you're still having problems with my instructions, please go over to The TechZone and read their instructions. Just follow the instructions and you'll be left with a "naked" CPU!! The URL is: http://thetechzone.com/articles/p3_heatsink_remove.htm

Well, what do you do now with a naked CPU?? Well, first of all, you have to clean it. Wipe off all the thermal paste that is on the CPU. Remember that you cannot, cannot be messy! I tried to give it a wipe and whack the cooler on and in the end, I can't reach the speed that I got with the retail cooler on. With a retail cooler, I could reach 558mhz but even with a 3rd party cooler, I couldn't reach 558mhz. It's all BECAUSE I was messy. I didn't wipe it clean! So... WIPE THE DAMN THING CLEAN!!

Bij Sharky Extreme staat nu een vrij uitgebreide review van de 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV online. Hier wat info over zijn overklokbaarheid:

Since overclocking is so popular with gamers, we put the Voodoo3 3500 through the wringer to see what clock/memory speed it would be stable at. If you remember back to the Voodoo3 2000 and 3000, the overclocking success rate was pretty high, with most being able to progress to the speed of the card above it. That being the case, the Voodoo3 2000 could easily attain 166 MHz, while the Voodoo3 3000 was able to hit 183 MHz most of the time. Since the Voodoo3 chip is essentially the same in all models, and if 3dfx was having great chip yields, it's not surprising that high clock speeds were being attained with the lower-end cards.

The Voodoo3 3500 doesn't really follow in these footsteps and exhibits what you might call "diminishing returns". The 3500's 183 MHz clock speed must be getting very close to the limit of the design, since I couldn't get much over 193 MHz out of my review card. I could run games at a higher speed, but my desktop would sometimes get corrupted upon exit. Since the Voodoo3 has a locked memory/clock speed, I really can't say whether it was the added heat of the Voodoo3 chip, or if I was pushing the Hyundai 5.5 ns, 183 MHz memory too far. Either way, the V3 3500 does not overclock like the previous Voodoo3 cards, but the 193 MHz speed can still help with high-resolution 3D games. As with all video cards, Voodoo3 overclocking is a real crapshoot, and anything from chip grade to memory speed and brand can have an impact on your results. These overclocking results should not be taken as indicative of any other Voodoo3 3500 than the one reviewed here.

Check de review voor meer info.

Over bij Combatsim hebben ze in een klein artikel een vergelijking gemaakt tussen de Savage2000, GeForce 256 en de volgende kaart van 3dfx. Hier is vast een gedeelte, de rest vind je hier.

The low-end fill rate noted by Nvidia for their GeForce 256 is 480 M/pizels per second, barely 30% faster than the current reigning champion: the Voodoo 3 3500. Let's guess this truly is low ball, since the low end clock rate is a mere 120MHz. Guillemot has announced that their 3d Prophet, based on the same chip, will exceed this figure. Let's guess that Guillemot's board will top out at 150MHz and 600 M/pixels per second.

S3s Savage2000, on the other hand, boasts a fill rate 100% faster than the V3 3500. This raw difference in horsepower means that most 3d games would see a dramatic increase in speed apart from other factors, including improvements in CPU clock rate or onboard T&L.

The GeForce 256, on the other hand, boasts only a small improvement in fill rate along with an enormously powerful geometry processing unit (GPU.) But what this means is that the GeForce remains CPU limited. In order to utilize the massive power of the GPU, one needs a CPU of enormous horsepower. If the CPU cannot supply the pixel pushing horsepower, the only real benefit of the GeForce is the onboard T&L engine. This is great for games which support DX7, but the first simulations which do so won't be seen until Q1, 2000.

Bij The Tech Zone hebben ze nog een artikel online gemikt van nVidia's GeForce 256. Niet veel anders dan de 41 andere artikels, maar het Voodoo4 vs. GeForce 256 gedeelte is wellicht de moeite waard. Check het hele artikel hier.

Now there is much debate as to how better graphics can be brought into gaming. Quite unsurprisingly 3dfx who have concentrated on more fill-rate is claiming that is the way to go. Not directly by raw fill-rate but by allowing for T-Buffer technology, especially anti-aliasing, which will greatly improve the visual quality of games. Yet for current games the GeForce 256 seems quite capable at 1024x768, which at 60 fps has been the 3dfx anathema as well. In a recent interview 3dfx were stating that their card will be superior at higher resolutions. True but this is also spin-doctoring because using the T-Buffer is meant to give good frame rates at 1024x768, about the same resolution that the GeForce will run with it's own feature set fully enabled and at similar frame rates. So both these products will perform their respective tricks and hope to give you 60 fps at 1024x768. The ideal situation of course could be to have a Glaze3D 2400 with the Thor geometry co-processor! This would allow the same geometrically detailed levels and models but at a higher resolution. One thing about the T-buffer that is really cool is that it will not require you to wait for any games to support it for anti-aliasing! It's just a driver switch to turn it on. Of course the other features are not as easy. In fact since they are cinematic effects they will need a more fundamental shift in the game design which may actually deter developers from fully utilising it because they will be blocking out a large potential customer base in doing so. Things like the use of depth-of-field to simulate a blurred/concussion effect should not present such problems though. With the GeForce developers will have to make more detailed levels than is currently used. So you will see this only in new games. It is often said that developers will not bother due to the need to support a large base of cards without such geometry features. But with most of the good 3D engines supporting dynamic level-of-detail (LOD) often based on the frame-rates you are getting this shouldn't be as big an issue as some would like you to believe.

Ik zie bij Matrox Users dat er nieuwe versie uit is van MGA Tweak, die nu uit komt op versie 1.12 Beta Build 015. Downloaden kan hier. (366kB)

MGATweak Version 1.12 Beta Build 015 (366Kb) is now available for public beta. The new version improves the overclockability of the G400 MAX by providing clock duty cycle correction control and the option to turn of auto duty cycle correction as used in previous version of MGATweak, at the expense of violating the chip specification PLL programming procedures. Duty cycle correction is further explained in the user guide. By ignoring duty cycle correction, some G400 MAX can go as high as 170/227.

Hardware Extreme heeft nog wat info over de nieuwe Abit BE6-II en BF6, waarvan gisteren de specs bekend werden gemaakt:

Jeremy from ABIT has just informed me that mass production for the BE6 II and the BF6 will not begin until mid October. If the boards were to come out then, I think it would be better to get an ABIT Camino board instead ;D Anyway we have yet to see how much the Camino (i820) boards will be priced like and I think that the two boards ABIT will be releasing soon can be an alternative to buyers if Camino based boards are too expensive.

Hopelijk wil dit zeggen dat beide borden meteen vanaf de eerste release doen wat ze moeten doen (dus geen semi-brak Softmenu zoals ik op m'n BP6 heb).

3DHardware.net heeft een artikeltje neer geknalt waarin ze de AOpen AX63 Pro en Soyo 6VBA133 moederplanken vergelijken. Beide borden zijn gebaseerd op de VIA Apollo Pro 133, op dit moment de enige P6 chipset met officieel support voor 133MHz FSB. Ondanks de 133MHz busspeed blijft de performance achter bij die van de BX chipset:

After talking about the nifty features and new overclocking possibilities of these boards, you might want to know how they perform. After all, that is what it all boils down to, and why most people buy new hardware. I'm sorry to say this, but both these boards are clearly inferior performers to pretty much any 440BX motherboard out there. Our benchmarks conclude that both of the boards are at the same performance level (framerates in Quake2 vary by negligible numbers), and around 5 FPS (average 7%) slower (in games) than a BX based motherboard at the same speed, this more and more visible as we move upward on the resolution scale.

We simply have to draw the conclusion of that the chipset's AGP implementation is worse than Intel's, and advise any hardcore gamers and tweakers to stay away from these boards. Because what's a processor running at 10% higher frequencies good for, if the motherboard knocks off the 10% in the games?

Slashdot heeft nog wat info over de iMac II: volgens Japan Apple Watch gaat het ding net zo kleurloos worden als de 'graphite and white' G4's:

The usually very reliable Japan Apple Watch quotes South Korean sources saying that the iMac II will be launched at the Paris Apple Expo in a couple of weeks. What's interesting about this is that one of the new colors will be the 'graphite and white' as seen on the G4. I suspect that this means that Apple will use the iMac II to get apple back into the business market and sell one G4 together with 10-30 iMacs IIs for about 10 to 25 grand. With AirPort this means that you've got an instant LAN that works out of the box with no cabling. " And the rumours are that the new machine will be less then 1000$US-though I would suspect that's a stripped down machine.

Bluebyte heeft op de ECTS in Londen aangekondigd dat het een vierde deel van de Settlers serie in ontwikkeling heeft. De release van Settlers 4 staat gepland voor het vierde kwartaal van 2000. AVault heeft het nieuws:

Fans can anticipate defiant new races, new units and buildings, various missions and a few unanticipated features. When questioned about the new features, Thomas Hertzler, Blue Byte's CEO promised Blue Byte is aiming to "dramatically improve" the series' appeal and will present players with some "great surprises."

Ik lees bij 3DNews.net dat EBWorld inmiddels pre-orders neemt voor de Guillemot Prophet. Deze GeForce 256 kaart zal op 25 september gereleased worden, tegen een prijs van $289,99. Meer info vind je op de thuispagina van EBWorld.

Savage Daily News heeft een Savage4 driver comparison in elkaar gedouwd, waarin ze de Quake3 (OpenGL) performance van de standaard Diamond MiniGL drivers, Savage XTreme drivers en de laatste S3 reference drivers vergelijken. Niet geheel onverwacht komt men tot de conclusie dat de meeste recente reference drivers het snelst zijn...

Well, the newest reference drivers (performance ICD) are the best set of drivers, considering that stability and performance are the top reasons for installing new drivers. No one wants to download new drivers and have their system faster, but with more bugs. Nor do they want a driver that will perform slowly and yet be stable. This is why the latest reference drivers are the best present drivers available today.

Chick's Hardware UK heeft een review gepost van de InWin Q500A, een bigtower die ook hier in de polder redelijk popi is:

I have always liked the motherboard tray, it is really a must have feature, especially on towers. I means that if you are building your computer, you don't have to turn your whole case sideways to install the motherboard etc. You can move to a small table and install your motherboard, cards, RAM and CPU, and then just simply slide the tray back into your case. One feature is a plastic bracket near the bottom front of the case, which clips on to the motherboard tray. This is good & bad. Good thing is that it holds the tray steady, so dampens vibrations. The bad thing is that the tray sometimes misses the bracket and does not pushed in fully. There is an option to buy a different motherboard tray from the ATX form factor to the ones such as Baby AT and Full AT. Which could enable future upgradability for different form factors, however, having said this the future looks like USB and Firewire devices....

Firingsquad heeft het eerste deel van hun Sega Droomkast review online gezet. De Dreamcast werd gisteren officieel geïntroduceerd in de VS. De NEC / Videologic PowerVR accelerator van deze speldoos heeft een maximale fillrate van 100Mpix/sec (tiled rendering, dus er worden alleen zichtbare pixels gerenderd):

The remarkably low fillrate may also shock a few readers as it's even lower than last year's S3 Savage3D accelerator for the PC. Yet again, the numbers can be misleading. The first "special case" the Dreamcast has is that it is a console and not a PC, which means that it only needs to run at the NTSC limit of 640x480. Part of the reason why PC owners need such fast 3D accelerators is that PCs need to run games at high resolutions such as 1024x768 to reduce aliasing. On a TV, 640x480 is plenty. Remember that an average DVD only has 480 lines of resolution. Detailed faces in real gameplay Player models in real-time

The second distinction is that the PowerVR chip is an infinite-plane based deferred renderer rather than a conventional triangle renderer such as that with S3, NVIDIA, or Sony. The developers of the PowerVR, NEC and VideoLogic, have quoted performance as being "250-500 MPixels/sec" and on occasion even claimed a fillrate exceeding 1 gigapixel/sec! Though marketing hype is half of the situation, the PowerVR chip has been measured at a fill rate exceeding 1 gigapixel/sec in the past! To understand why these different numbers are being thrown around, you need to first understand how these numbers are determined.

Inside Mac Games heeft een interview met John Carmack op het net gezet. In het interview wordt wat heen en weer gebabbeld over (Quake3) performance verschillen tussen de PC en Mac (G4):

Bernier: What do you think about the new Apple G4-velocity engine (aka, AltiVec)?

Carmack: It has the same basic capabilities as the Intel and AMD extensions, but it has several conveniences beyond them. The main one is just architectural -- trinary ops are a lot nicer than destructive binary ops. Like the PIII, but unlike AMD, the registers are separate, so they can be used at any time. There are improvements in permutation and other housekeeping tasks.

The AltiVec compiler support is better than the x86 solutions, but that is a mixed blessing. I don't consider encouraging people to write compiler specific code a particularly good thing. The incoming memory streaming is nice, but Intel's write combining is better for outgoing streaming. [break] En over de G4 hype zegt-ie: [/break] Don't believe any hype about the G4 being "three times as fast" as a pentium III. It isn't. It is somewhat faster per clock on average, but definitely not twice as fast, and it trails the fastest x86 machines by quite a few mhz right now, and that isn't likely to change due to its short pipeline length.

The G4 is great. I like it. Everyone should keep their claims rational.

De Japanse overklok maffia heeft weer toegeslagen met een watergekoelde Athlon-650 op 810MHz (3,25 x 250MHz):

810MHz was able to be achieved with Athlon by making to water-cooled. The performance improves greatly when FSB(MemoryClock) is high. The FSB tolerance of worried Irongate might be unexpectedly high.It was a very steady appearance in FSB125MHz. I think that the following take the temperature of CPU under the freezing point by insulated measures reinforcement. Kryotech? It is not a rival any longer.

Anand heeft op z'n frontpage een post geplaatst over de kwaliteit van de momenteel verkrijgbare Athlon mobo's. Volgens hem zijn de huidige Athlon planken van discutabele kwaliteit en zou het niet onverstandig zijn om even een paar maand wachten tot er betere én goedkopere borden te koop zijn:

I've spent most of tonight working on the Gigabyte and FIC Athlon motherboards and I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that there are no good Athlon motherboards on the market. It is really frustrating to see an excellent chip such as the Athlon be plagued by poor quality motherboards, this isn't directed specifically at Gigabyte/FIC but at the motherboard industry in general. Dr. Pabst (Tom's Hardware Guide) made a very valid point in saying that Intel may be strong arming motherboard manufacturers into not supporting the Athlon platform. It seems like motherboard manufacturers aren't seeing the potential for sales in this area, do they not remember the success ABIT attained with the world's first Slot-1 motherboard with voltage tweaking? How about even further in the history of motherboards, the first HX board with support for the 83MHz bus speed? How many users out there are still happily using their T2P4s? And how many of them kept on supporting the ASUS brand ever since then? I can guarantee you that if at least one motherboard manufacturer gets their act together and produces a truly high quality Athlon motherboard, they won't regret it.

Now I shouldn't make the generalization that no motherboard manufacturers understand this, in fact, quite a few of them do and unfortunately they're going to be abusing that knowledge quite a bit. How? Think back to when the first BX motherboards were released. No one bought one of the first BX boards with the knowledge that a much better board would be out in less than 6 months time at the same or an even lower price. There are going to be quite a few users that are going to go out and buy Athlons and Athlon motherboards the minute they can get their hands on them, and I don't blame them at all. The benchmarks speak for themselves, the Athlon is an incredibly fast processor. Here's where my complaint lies, the same people that are spending their hard earned money on the Athlons are going to be spending that same money (around $200 - $300 of it) on a motherboard. And what happens to that $200 - $300 after you already bought a motherboard and find out that 2 months later that you could get a better board at the same if not cheaper cost? It goes to waste on a motherboard that never should've been released in the first place. Quite a few of the Athlon motherboards that made it at the launch of the processor were never meant to be flagship products that would be mass produced. To me, they seem like quickly put together solutions that serve no purpose other than to get as many quick sells as possible and tide the market over until the real products are finished.

I'm not telling anyone not to buy an Athlon (I wouldn't dream of that) but what I am doing is giving you a heads up on the situation. Now, more than ever, is the time to wait if you're looking to upgrade your system. October is not too far away and you will see quite a few new product introductions made in that month, not only in the graphics market but in the CPU and motherboard markets as well. I hope my hints have made some sense Athlon supporters, there is light at the end of this tunnel.

En alsof het vorige bericht over A2000 en Chello nog niet voldoende is... UPC, zoals A2000 voortaan heten gaat, is een onderdeel van United Global Communications, waar webwereld het volgende over vertellen kan:

Liberty Media koopt voor ongeveer 493 miljoen dollar in contanten aandelen in United Global Communications, het moederbedrijf van UPC. De helft van de net gekochte aandelen worden overgeschreven aan Microsoft. Samen brengen de twee bedrijven de aandelen in in de nieuwe joint venture waar UPC een belang van 50 procent in neemt.

Veel plezier ermee hè??