Bij AGN Hardware hebben ze eens gekeken naar 2 nieuwe geluidskaartjes van Creative, de Soundblaster Live! X-Gamer en MP3+. Deze goedkopere uitvoering van de Live! serie beschikken nu ook over een digitale DIN ingang. Verder is het verschil tussen de twee varianten puur op het software gebied te vinden. Meer info vind je hier in de review van AGN.

The sound coming from the speakers was exactly the same as what you can expect from the Sound Blaster Live!, giving you great output for a cheaper price. This also means if you are already using a Sound Blaster Live!, I see no reason to upgrade. Sure Live!Ware 3.0 is a great collection of software, but do remember you can pay a small amount and have the CD with this software shipped to you. This is much cheaper than paying $99 for a brand new sound card for your system. For those of you using the MX300 or other sound cards including the Value, who want to hear your FPS 2000 speakers in digital mode, the MP3+ and X-Gamer are a must have. Just removing any hiss from the audio experience is well worth the investment of making a true move to digital audio quality.

Bij de USB Workshop is een review online gezet van de Diamond Rio 500 MP3 speler. Met 64MB aan opslagcapaciteit zou hij zo'n 2 uur aan MP3 encoded audio moeten opslaan. De prijs van 270 dollar vind ik persoonlijk nog steeds aan de hoge kant voor zo'n ding. Anyway, hieronder vast wat info:

Rio 500 is designed solely for one purpose: MP3 music playback. And that's all this player does. Without voice recording and FM tuner that Nomad has, Rio 500 has a hard time to justify the price for all-around users. But it certainly does a decent job for hardcore MP3 fans.

With 64MB onboard memory, Rio 500 can save up to 2 hours of MP3 music encoded at 64Kbps or 50 songs or 32 hours of spoken audio content. The 50-songs limitation that does not pose a problem because with the maximum memory available, 96MB, Rio 500 can only save about 40 songs encoded at 64kbps.

Other than MP3 support, the player also embraces other audio formats, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Audible format.

Rio SmartMedia flash cards

Rio 500 relies on SmartMedia flash cards for additional storage; both 16MB and 32MB are available for $60 and $100 respectively. Its SmartMedia cards are the same as the ones used for Rio 300. This saves some money for Rio 300 owners who will upgrade to Rio 500. SmartMedia cards formatted for Rio 500 are not usable in other devices (digital cameras, palm tops) with SmartMedia slots. There is a small utility, still in beta, on Diamond website for those who want their Rio-SmartMedia cards to work with other devices.

NEC gaat een fabriekje bouwen om voor Nintendo's nieuwe console genaamd Dolphin chips te bakken. Het gaat om de grafische chip met Embedded DRAM. In totaal verwacht NEC zo'n 2.8 miljard dollar te verdienen aan de productie van de chips aan Nintendo. De eerste chips zullen dan volgend jaar augustus van de lopende band rollen. Het complete verhaaltje van EETimes vind je hier.

TOKYO — NEC Corp. will construct a new fabrication facility to build a graphic chip with embedded DRAM as well as an application-specific DRAM that Nintendo Co. Ltd. will use in its next-generation game console, code-named Dolphin. NEC decided to build the fab after receiving an order from Nintendo for the chips. NEC expects to sell about $2.8 billion of the devices over the full life of Dolphin. The fab will be built at NEC's facilities on Kyushu, an island in southern Japan. Construction will begin in November and operation is expected to begin next August. The line will have a capacity of 10,000 eight-inch wafers a month.

Anand van AnandTech heeft een review geschreven van de VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset. De 'A' is hier toegevoegd omdat hij nu support heeft voor AGP 4X. Hieronder heb je vast een gedeelte uit de review, lees hier verder.

Feature-wise, the Apollo Pro 133A is just what the doctor ordered, it combines all of the "next-generation" features that we're looking for. Although it may not offer the same amount of memory bandwidth as the i820, it is definitely a good solution for current 133MHz FSB CPUs, at least until RDRAM takes off as the next standard as Intel is claiming it will become.

The chipset, like all of VIA's solutions, uses the familiar North/South Bridge construction with the memory, AGP and CPU interactions controlled by the North Bridge and all other peripherals (i.e. IDE controllers, PCI bus, etc…) controlled by the South Bridge. How does the new North Bridge make the Apollo Pro 133A what it is?

The North Bridge that makes up the chipset is the VIA VT82C694X as is seen to the right. This is the first VIA North Bridge to be manufactured out of National Semiconductor's fabrication plants, which VIA acquired earlier this year, hence the National Semiconductor logo.

The 694X is virtually identical to VIA's VT82C693A that was present as the North Bridge on Apollo Pro 133 boards. It supports the 1/2 AGP clock divider, the 133MHz FSB frequency as well as asynchronous operation of the memory bus at either the FSB frequency, FSB - 33MHz or FSB + 33MHz (combinations greater than 133MHz are not supported). This means that the memory frequencies supported by the chipset are 66MHz, 100MHz, and 133MHz. It also allows you to combine a 133MHz FSB CPU with slower PC100 SDRAM that doesn't cut it at 133MHz.

Verderop in de review kijkt Anand ook nog even naar Virtual Channel SDRAM.

Bij Sharky Extreme is een review te vinden van de Matrox Marvel G400-TV. Deze videokaart heeft naast een TV tuner en TV out allemaal geinige video editing en digitizing hardware features aan boord. Met de nieuwe TurboGL drivers van Matrox presteert hij ook nog eens erg goed in games. Check alle info over dit kaartje hier.

The Marvel uses the standard .25 micron G400 graphics chip clocked at 125MHz. A 128-bit memory bus runs to 16MB of SGRAM clocked at 166MHz giving a 250 megapixel peak fill-rate. A 300MHz RAMDAC gives extremely crisp and clear images as well as the ability to draw 2D screen resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 in 16.8 million colors at 85Hz as well as 3D screen resolutions up to 1600x1200 in 16.8 million colors. We were unable to get the Marvel to work in 3D at 1600x1200 in 32bit color. We believe this limitation is due to the Marvel's 16MB of RAM. Hardware DVD acceleration and bump mapping as well as AGP 2X and 4X are all supported. A second CRTC combined with the special Marvel connector and Marvel connector box gives the Marvel its famous Dual-Head feature where, in addition to drawing the image to your main screen, it can draw a mirrored or different image to a TV monitor. All in all, the Marvel's features really knock down the competition. So how fast is it? What about TurboGL? Read on…

Verder lezen mag je hier...

Bij Deez Tech hebben ze nog een review in elkaar gezet rondom een Athlon 500MHz systeem. Ook al is dit de traagste Athlon ooit, hij verschilt soms niet veel van een Pentium 3 600:

Overall, the Athlon 500 is a very impressive processor. Even though it's been clocked at a considerable less clock rate, it still kept up and even beat Intel's offerings on a few tests. You are probably thinking that it probably would had been a lot more fair if I had actually compared the Athlon against identically clocked Intel parts. But even in those seemingly unfair conditions the Athlon STILL looked good. The only negative I see with the Athlon is the difficulty overclocking one of them, and the fact that since it's such a new processor, we haven't seen any really good motherboard support from the manufacturers. I used the SD-11 to run this Athlon, and lemme tell you, I was NOT impressed. But that's a whole different story. Take care!

Check de rest van de test hier.

Bij SystemLogic hebben ze een cool interview gehouden met Alex "Sharky" Ross, de webmaster van Sharky Extreme en voorheen updater bij Voodoo Extreme. Naast de standaard vragen lullen ze ook wat off-topic. Check het hele gesprek hier.

SL: How long do you spend working on Sharky Extreme a week?

SE: Too long! There's a whole team of people here that work long hours and we don't really 'clock in' or 'out'. Whatever it takes...

SL: How many people do you have working for Sharky Extreme?

SE: Four full-time editors and 4-5 free lance as well as a dedicated sales and marketing team.

SL: Who designed Sharky Extreme, and what sort of technologies did they/you use?

SE: The concept was itself was a joint idea between myself and Larry Barber. I can't remember who came up with the name. Joan maybe... Anders Hammervald, designed the site and did all the HTML and graphics. He's pretty well known for doing a great job and with SE he's done us proud.

The Register heeft in dit nieuwsbericht wat info losgelaten over de prijzen van Intel's eigen Coppermine supported moederborden. Hieronder de info:

The SE440BX (Seattle) mobo which uses the 440BX chipset with Coppermine support, (823346) will cost $110, while the same mobo with integrated Yamaha audio will cost $122. The SR440BX will cost $182.

The CA810e, a Micro ATX board which supports the socketed Pentium III (and Celeron), will cost $135. The same board with integrated Crystal 4297/Creative 1373 will cost $146.

The RC440BX, a slot one baby, which includes Ensoniq PCI audio and supports the PIII, PII, and Celeron costs $150. Pretty clear what that message is -- slot one is in dodoland.

Active Hardware heeft een review online gezet van de Shuttle AV61 mobo met Via Apollo Pro133 chipset. Hieronder wat info over dit plankje:

Expansion options are well assured by the AV61's 5/2/1 design, meaning 5 PCI slots, 2 ISA slots, and 1 AGP port. Also, 3 168-pin DIMM sockets allow for a maximum of 768MB of memory to be installed.

As concerns the AV61's configuration, things are a bit different. Effectively, the installer is faced with two choices. First of all, an array of jumpers for configuring clock frequency, memory frequency, clock multiplier, and the processor's core voltage. Nest, all these functions - but the core voltage function - can also be performed from a menu within the BIOS named "CPU Speed Settings". Finally, a function within the "Chipset Features Setup" menu permits the adjustment of the memory frequency synchronous with that of the system bus by adding or subtracting 33Mhz from the former. For example, you may set your system bus to 133Mhz, and by subtracting 33Mhz, operate PC100 memory without problems.

As mentioned before, the processor's core voltage is adjustable via jumper JP48. Possible settings include: +0.15%, +0.5%, +1.5%, and +7.8%.

Available clock frequencies include: 66/75/83/100/103/105/110/112/115/120/124/133/140 and 150Mhz, with clock multipliers available from 2X to 8X in steps of 0.5X.

Bij GamePC is een kleine round-up te vinden van een stel 8x Cd-Recorders. Meegenomen in de test zijn de Plextor PlexWriter 8/20 CD-R, de Hewlett Packard CD-Writer Plus 8/4/32 CD-RW en de Panasonic 8/20 CD-R.

As the marks show, the Plextor drive barely edges out the Hewlett Packard in writing an entire disc, but beats it in the file transfer and digital audio extraction tests. The Hewlett Packard also writes discs extremely fast, and functions better as a standard CD-rom drive. The Panasonic drive tested smack dab in the middle for most of the tests, but took a few seconds longer to write the CD. In real world uses through, a 10 second longer write-time is no big deal. Most people set their recorders to burn than leave their computers while it writes. Don't base a buying decision on that small of a difference.

The drive that seems to perform best all around is the Hewlett Packard model, since the drive can write CD-RW discs as well as CD-R's, and has respectable write times compared to the Plextor. Also, the HP unit comes with a bundle of nicer software and even a disc labeling kit right out of the box. Although, the HP drive wouldn't work on our standard version of Adaptec's software, when I installed HP's version of the Adaptec Easy CD program, it worked fine.

There's not much left to be said, all of the drives performed amazingly well. 8X CD-R drives are a beautiful sight to see in motion, and just the ability to burn a CD in the timeframe of 10 minutes puts a smile on my face. All in all through, HP is just a better package. It's a bit slower writing than the PlexWriter, but offers ReWriting abilities and a better software package.

Bij Storage Review is een review gepost van de Maxtor DiamondMax 40. Deze 5400rpm schijf heeft met zijn 10.2GB per platter een heftige opslagcapaciteit van 41 gigabyte. Over het algemeen zijn ze positief over dit schijfje:

In conclusion, the first-of-its-generation DiamondMax 40 posts record scores for a 5400rpm drive. As one should expect, it out-muscles the best of the previous generation, though not by margins that would be considered earth-shattering. Competing drives have already been announced by at least two other manufacturers. All the others will surely follow. Their arrival will help put the DM40's performance into better perspective. Maxtor's drive, however, is the only announced unit that incorporates more than 3 platters in an assembly. Thus, if you need 40 gigs of storage in a 1" high drive, the DiamondMax 40 is your only ticket.

De rest van de review is hier te vinden.

nVidia heeft een lijst met games die geoptimaliseerd zijn voor de T&L engine van de GeForce 256 op hun site gemikt. In het lijstje komen o.a. voor: Quake III Arena , Test Drive 6, Halo, Drakan 2, Star Trek Voyager en Colin McRea Rally II. Voor het hele lijstje moet je hier wezen.

Bij SysOpt hebben ze een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid over de 64bit processors van Intel (de Itanium) en AMD (de Sledghehammer). In het artikel vind je wat info over de werking van de CPU's, vrij goed geschreven wel. Lees alle info hier.

It looks like Intel is going to win in the first-to-market race, and the significance of this cannot be underestimated. Still, AMD has surprised us before - note the Athlon - so it would be foolish to assume that they won't be able to do so again. At this time, actual performance of the Itanium is little known, and a complete mystery in the Sledgehammer. Software support for the Itanium is massive, as Intel has treated software development corporations as virtual partners. This may be AMD's biggest hurdle. Public and IS managers' perceptions are molded by many factors, such as initial product defects, press reviews, and product loyalty. The existing base of Intel processors certainly gives an edge here, but AMD's penchant for cutthroat pricing has been effective in wooing customers away from Intel.

For most PC users, there is little need to incorporate the outcome of this battle into purchasing decisions now. It will be a minimum of a year, and more likely two years, before we start seeing the results of this next generation of processors filtering down to the desktop. In the meantime, we can sit back and watch the fireworks. It promises to be an exciting show.

Speedy 3D heeft een interview gepost met Brian Burke, public relations manager bij 3dfx. Helaas geen nieuwe info over hun nieuwe kaart, daarvoor moeten we na Comdex wachten. Hieronder heb je vast 2 vragen, check de rest hier.

Q4: With all the recent competition in the 3d graphics accelerator business, S3, Martox, Nvidia, ATI,and Permedia, all releasing new products every 6 months, do you think the average gamer has too many chooses? Do you think the industry is moving to quickly for anybody to keep up with?

I have been in the graphics card industry for 9 years and it has always been this way. This is not new. The web just makes it more visible.

Choices create competition and competition benefits the consumer. That said, at some point you have to put a stake in the ground and break down and buy something. There is always something new coming around the corner. If a new card does not offer a whole lot of improvement in performance and has features that really won’t benefit consumers until software supports it in 6 or 9 months (when the card is obsolete), maybe you skip that generation. Another card that has a big gain in performance and an immediately useable feature like full scene AA will be right around the corner. (Blatant self promotion)

The consolidation that has been promised in graphics has started. First STB and 3dfx, then S3 and Diamond.

Q9: Is 3dfx finally going to offer full AGP 4x support in their next generation product? Would it be useful?

We have not announced the specs for next product, and I will get killed if I let the cat out of the bag this close to Comdex. We have heard the cries of our fans. They want 4x AGP, 32-bit support, and large texture support.

Pietertje schrijft: "JO GUY's... superweb heeft EINDELIJK wat nieuws op hun site gezet! Check it out!! "

Hier heb je alvast een stuk

De massale belangstelling van Internetters voor het unieke concept van Superweb -landelijke Internettoegang zonder telefoonkosten door inbellen via een 0800 nummer- noodzaakt het Superwebteam tot technische aanpassingen aan het systeem achter Superweb's Internet Service. De problemen werden veroorzaakt door een router die de belangstelling niet aankon. Op dit moment wordt met man en macht gewerkt aan oplossingen.

Surf voor het hele artikel naar Superweb

Annihilator schrijft: "Er zijn nieuwe detonator (3.52) drivers bij www.riva3d.com voor win9x en win2000":

It seems there's some 3.52 drivers out here I'm downloading them and I'm gonna do a file compare to see if they're legit'.

They will enable Direct Draw, OpenGL and Direct3D in Win2000 which has been an issue for Riva owners. There have been beta drivers that would enable Direct3D but DISABLE direct draw, 3.52 will enable them all!

Haal deze driver hier naar beneden.

*Update*: Check dit nieuwsbericht voor de officiële detonator drivers.

hjs schrijft: "The Tech Zone heeft een test van rijf verschillende HD-coolers.In het strijdperk treden de Kong Cooler ($27.00), de Just Cooler CO-HD35 ($12.95), de Just Cooler HD200 ($17.00), de Super Cooler E2C ($40.50) en de AMK HD-3 ($23.50)":

Hier heb je alvast een stuk uit de review

A roundup of hard drive coolers? Why on Earth would you need to cool your hard drive? If you have a normal IDE hard drive that spin at 5,400 RPM or below, then most likely you don't need a drive cooler. However, with the new wave of 7200 RPM and 10,000 RPM SCSI hard drives hitting the market, the time has come to take a look at hard drive coolers.

While a hard drive cooler won't make your hard drive go any faster, it will help to keep it running cool. Heat not only kills CPUs, it can kill any other component in your computer.
As hard drives gets faster and faster, they run hotter and hotter. Hence the need to look at ways of keeping them cool.

Volg deze link voor het hele artikel.

Jammie, dit is leuk voor personen met een iets te ruim budget: Mylex heeft twee nieuwe Ultra 160 SCSI RAID controllers gereleased. Het topmodel eXtremeRAID 2000 biedt ruimte aan 60 schijven, heeft 4 Ultra 160 interfaces en kost maar 2099 dollar (niets vergeleken met de prijs die je betaald voor 60 Quantum Atlas 10K schijven ). Hier de info van EETimes:

Mylex Corp. is making its entry into the nascent Ultra 160 SCSI market with two SCSI-based RAID controller boards that will be introduced this week. The entry-level AcceleRAID 352 and high-end eXtremeRAID 2000 both conform to the newest SCSI interface standard, operating at data transfer rates of 160 Mbytes/second.

[...] The AcceleRAID 352 is targeted at entry-level PCI RAID subsystems. Powered by the i960RN processor at 100 MHz, the board includes two channels of Ultra 160 SCSI. Mylex's firmware is stored in PC100 SDRAM. The part can support as many as 30 disk drives or 2.16 Tbytes of storage, Mylex said.

[...] The eXtremeRAID 2000 is targeted at higher-end servers and server clusters, and even at the storage-area network market, which is usually the domain of Fibre Channel. The eXtremeRAID 2000 board uses Intel Corp.'s StrongARM SA 110 processor running at 233 MHz and has four Ultra 160/m SCSI channels. Like the AcceleRAID 352, it can use 64-bit PCI to hit 266-Mbyte/s burst rates. But unlike the lower-end board, it can interface with 66-MHz PCI, according to Mylex. The board can support as many as 60 disk drives or 4.32 Tbytes of storage.

Opperhoofd Bill heeft verkondigd dat er een toekomst bestaat zonder Microsoft. Deze hoopgevende uitspraak deed Hij tijdens een interview met de BBC. GA-Source heeft er een artikeltje over in elkaar gebakken:

Bill Gates, the world's first $100 billion man, admits his company Microsoft will one day be replaced. In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC's Jeremy Paxman, the world's richest man describes his meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair as "neat", outlines his vision of the technological future and claims never to have heard a Bill Gates joke.

The Microsoft founder, whose company is currently being sued by the US Government for anti-competitive business practices, says he can envision a future without Microsoft.

He acknowledges that someone may be working on the type of ground-breaking innovation he came up with in the 1970s to revolutionise the industry.

"Eventually all companies are replaced," he tells Mr Paxman

Prachtig, ik kan bijna niet wachten .

Kryotech heeft een 900Mhz versie van z'n Cool Athlon bare-bones systeempje geïntroduceerd. 2200 dollar meebregen en dan heb je er eentje:

KryoTech, Inc. today announced immediate availability of its Cool Athlon 900 system. Based on the recently introduced AMD Athlon processor, the Cool Athlon 900 is the world's first PC system to be commercially sold at this processor speed. A standard AMD Athlon processor is thermally accelerated to 900MHz by lowering the processor operating temperature with KryoTech's minus 40ºC cooling system.

KryoTech is selling the Cool Athlon 900 in a bare-bones configuration for $2,200 (U.S. retail) and is taking orders online at http://www.kryotech.com for immediate delivery. The Cool Athlon 900 will also be available in complete system configurations from KryoTech's authorized resellers. A complete list of domestic and international resellers is also available on the company's website.

Dankzij M-Team Systems (Kryotech distributeur) kunnen ik en Reinder vandaag naar de AMD/Kryotech Roadshow in Amsterdam, wellicht krijgen we daar ook nog leuke dingen te zien .

GA-Source weet ons te vertellen dat Intel de problemen met de Xeon 1Mb in een 8-way server configuratie heeft verholpen. Men is echter nog niet in staat gebleken om de iets minder onbetaalbare Xeon met 512Kb L2 cache van de bug te zuiveren:

Three weeks after a problem with Intel 8-way motherboards and on-chip Level 2 cache first came to light, company officials said today that the glitch which caused systems to hang when using the 1MB on-chip Level 2 cache configuration is fixed.

However, the problem persists in 512KB Level 2 cache configurations, according to Otto Pijpker, an Intel spokesman.

"We don't have a solution yet for the 512KB configuration," Pipker said.

Systems configured with 2MB of Level 2 never suffered from the problem. The problem manifests itself by a blue screen or system reset, but according to Pijpker, this happens only under very unusual circumstances.

Guillemot heeft een nieuwe versie van z'n Gougar Model 64 videokaartje gereleased. De Gougar Video Edition heeft een TV uitgang en video ingang. Hier wat geblaat uit de press release:

Guillemot introduced today the new Cougar Video Edition graphics card based on the NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 M64 chipset. The card includes video-making capabilities as well as powerful graphics for all 3D games and an impressive 2D performance for home applications both in AGP and PCI versions.

The Cougar Video Edition will appeal to PC users because of the 32-bit true color 3D rendering and a 125 MHz core clock which allows for faster refresh rates and speed when browsing heavy image based sites. The 32 MB on-board RAM allows for enhanced 2D and 3D resolution. It also includes an OpenGL ICD and Direct3D/DirectX hardware accelerator, AGP 4X/2X interface, a powerful processor, and 250 million texture mapped pixels/sec.

The Cougar Video Edition is also an complete solution for video design with its unique RIVA TNT2 M64 3D processor and video-editing functions. The Cougar VE provides a VGA connector for monitor output, a SVHS connector for TV-Out, an VHS connector for SVHS Video-In and a RCA connector for Composite In. The Cougar VE is also bundled with Ulead VideoStudio 3.0 SE, a user-friendly video-editing software.

The Ulead VideoStudio 3.0 puts digital home video excitement within the reach of anyone with a camcorder, a PC, and a desire to make movies. A user-friendly interface makes it easier to capture video clips, arrange them, add subtitles, music from CDs, record voiceover narration, transition from one object to another, apply cool effects, and then transfer the creations onto videotapes all within one hour. The program promises to be easy enough that family members of all ages can use it for entertainment as well as being beneficial for SOHO users who are looking to upgrade their web pages.

Pricing and Availability:
Cougar Video Edition (APG version): $169.99
Cougar Video Edition (PCI version): $179.99

The Cougar Video Edition will be available at the end of this month at: major retail outlets and on Guillemot Online at www.guillemot.com/northamerica.

Ik kwam bij MacOS Rumors deze posting tegen over het overklokken van de G4. Met enige moeite schijnt het mogelijk te zijn. De multiplier moet verandert worden en dat gaat niet mbv jumpers... en een BIOS ben ik nog nooit tegengekomen op een Mac :

First, the source noted that at Apple, one "fix" suggested to allow the company to ship 500MHz G4s was strictly clocking them to 499MHz. Few Mac users are aware of how imprecise processor clocking can often be -- machines sold as "400MHz" often actually run at 401.3MHz, for example. Because Motorola's first-release PowerPC 7400 chips contained a flaw that could cause them to be unstable at 500MHz or above, an attempt was made to allow all "500MHz" PowerMac G4s to run at 499MHz, avoiding the bug. The effort did not bear fruit because of the aforementioned inaccuracy of clocking; some machines still reached 500-508MHz, others went as low as 496MHz.

Although Apple itself can't work around the problem this way, some users of 400-450MHz G4s who wish to overclock may be able to. As with all overclocking operations, there is the possibility of causing damage to your machine, but....users with actual bus speeds of 99MHz or less (use a utility such as Powerlogix's G3 Cache Profiler to determine this) may be able to clock their processors to just short of 500MHz successfully and without encountering the first-release G4 bug. On the Sawtooth motherboard this involves soldering or the use of a third-party CPU with a bus-ration adjustment dial, but once the issue of CPU clocking is dealt with, even if the processor does in fact reach or exceed 500MHz, the instabilities introduced should be fairly subtle and can be avoided simply by clocking the machine back down.

The bottom line: all issues of pricing aside, the PowerMac G4 may be somewhat less limited for purposes of overclocking than once thought.

And, of course, the second overclocking insight we received from Apple: Sawtooth motherboards do, as with all other machines, include a set of resistors whose configuration controls the speed of its main bus. Our Apple source has successfully used PC133 SDRAM (hard to find, but it is out there) and a change of resistor configuration to send a Sawtooth to 133MHz main bus speeds. He was able to drive a test-seed 550MHz-rated G3 processor to 666MHz in the modified machine!

Betanews bericht dat Windows 2000 RTM (de datum waarop de final in produktie gaat) wederom is uitgesteld. Aanvankelijk was het de bedoeling dat produktie midden november zou beginnen, maar Bill heeft dit verplaatst naar 8 december:

As Microsoft finalizes Windows 2000 Release Candidate 3, the RTM date of the upcoming OS slowly slips further away. In a recent announcement to ISVs, Microsoft noted that Windows 2000 is currently on schedule for a December 8th release to manufacturing. Microsoft was originally shooting for a mid-November COMDEX release, although changes to the RC3 schedule has deemed this impossible. Windows 2000 is expected to hit retail outlets in early February of next year.

Ik lees bij Betanews dat Asus en AOpen nieuwe beta BIOSsen voor hun moederplankjes in elkaar hebben geknutseld. Hier heb je de download locaties:

- AOpen MX59 Pro Revision 1.13 Beta - 276 KB
- AOpen AX59 Pro Revision 2.31 Beta - 276 KB
- Asus P3B-F Revision 1003-10 Beta
- Asus P2B Series Revision 1011-06 Beta
- Asus MEB Series Revision 1011-06 Beta
- Asus P2Z Series Revision 1011-06 Beta
- Asus MEZ Series Revision 1011-06 Beta
- Asus P5A Series Revision 1008-03 Beta