Ali heeft de press release van de Aladdin 7 online gekwakt. Check ook dit nieuwsbericht van vandaag voor meer info.

SAN JOSE, CA, USA - NOVEMBER 8, 1999 - Acer Laboratories Inc., (ALi) and ArtX Inc. (ArtX) today announced the new Aladdin 7 core logic chipset for the emerging PC market segment of “Performance Consumer PCs.” The Aladdin 7 Northbridge and Southbridge chipset integrates ArtX’s advanced 3D geometry and graphics accelerator into a full-featured NB/SB chipset, delivering benchmarked performance 2 to 3 times greater than other Socket 7-based systems when running popular 3D game titles. The Aladdin 7 128-bit architecture delivers extraordinary 3D game playing, enhanced CPU performance, and a rich Internet experience to consumers at an unprecedented price point. The product, a joint effort between ALi and ArtX, will be sold by ALi along with ALi’s portfolio of core logic and peripheral ICs.

The problem with the low-cost consumer PC and the “Free PC” today, is that end users must sacrifice graphics performance to get the low system price,” commented ALi President Dr. Chin Wu. “Since most of these PCs are going into homes, where PC-oriented entertainment is prevalent, this low performance is disappointing to users. With the new capabilities delivered by our Aladdin 7, consumers can have game-enthusiast performance at consumer-oriented price points.”

Typically, game-oriented performance PC systems sell for several hundred dollars more than low-end consumer PCs due to the extra cost of adding high-performance 3D graphics accelerators and memory, higher performance core logic, cache, and higher-end CPUs. By providing a high-performance 3D geometry graphics engine in the chipset, ALi and ArtX set a new standard of performance in the value market segment.

Lees hier de rest van de press-release.

The Adrenaline Vault heeft in dit artikel wat reacties bij elkaar geharkt van een aantal game designers over de Microsoft rechtszaak. Dit is wat Scott Miller van 3D Realms ervan vindt:

I would rather see Microsoft stay together under the vision and direction of Gates. Also, as the break-up of AT&T showed, a broken monopoly doesn't always lead to truer competition and better prices. However, if Microsoft is abusing its product monopoly, which it truly does have due to the success of Windows, then that needs to be stopped. Companies that compete with Gates' Godzilla should win or lose based on business factors like product worthiness and marketing, rather than Microsoft manipulating suppliers, distributors and retailers in monopolistic ways--assuming that is what's happening.

hjs schrijft dat Riva Station een aantal benchmarks gepost heeft die de CPU schaling weergeven van de TNT2 Ultra en de GeForce 256 met DDR Ram onder een AMD K6-2, C300A een P3-550 en een Coppermine 750. Check de resultaten hier.

Was sieht es nun wirklich aus? Kann die Hardwareimplementierung von T&L im NVIDIA GeForce einer auslaufenden CPU nochmals auf die Sprünge helfen? Von Skepsis bis Marketingversprechen bekommt man vieles zu hören. Die Wahrheit liegt wie immer wohl genau in der Mitte. Wo genau diese Mitte ist, hängt (noch) von den Lieblingsspielen und der verwendeten 3D API ab.

RIVA Station hat eine GeForce DDR Referenzkarte und eine Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 mit TNT2 Ultra (175/183) auf verschiedenen CPUŽs getestet.

hjs stuurde een round-up in van een vijftal Pentium III heatsinks. Check 3D Wars voor de rest.

- CoolTek: The VGS08H P3 Dual Fan Cooler is priced at a very reasonable 17.50 US Dollars. The retention clip is a great feature and this heatsink had some very solid performance. An excellent choice overall.

- 3DfxCOOL: The T3-REX-FAN is priced at 30.00 US Dollars. Having the extra fans probably causes that extra price increase. If you want the additional bit of case cooling, go for it.

- The Card Cooler: The Thin Fin is priced at 19.00 US Dollars. If you want a nice performance increase and care about space, this is your best bet.

- The Card Cooler: The Ultimate P3 Cooler is priced at 22.00 US Dollars. Good performance, although a bit awkward with the ambient temperature. You get a solid heatsink and fan at a fairly reasonable price.

- Tennmax: The P3 TF is priced at 28.00 US Dollars. A very nicely feature fan and heatsink with some decent perks added along. A good buy if you're into the Tennmax special made scene.

CNET Gamecenter heeft er een review bij van de WinFast 7000VX, een moederplaat van Leadtek met de VIA Apollo Pro133 chipset. Hieronder een gedeelte uit de review:

The orderly nature of the universe has broken down. Intel has failed to deliver the chipsets and motherboards required to support its latest and greatest CPUs, opening a mammoth window of opportunity for chipset maker Via. Leadtek's WinFast 7000VX motherboard uses Via's Apollo Pro133 chipset, and delivers some key features, but not all that you might want.

Intel was supposed to release in September its 820 chipset, which was slated to offer a 133-MHz system bus with Rambus memory, AGP 4X graphics support, and an Ultra ATA-66 hard drive interface. Then, it was supposed to have debuted its "Coppermine" Pentium IIIs, offering integrated L2 cache and higher clock speeds, in October. The Coppermine launch went off without a hitch, but a bug in the 820 motherboard design relating to the Rambus memory kept it from launching. As of this date, the chipset still has not been released.

This delay has opened up an extraordinary window of opportunity for Via. The company has developed a chipset that supports 133-MHz SDRAM, AGP 4X, and Ultra ATA-66. Leadtek uses the AGP 2X version of this chipset for its WinFast 7000VX motherboard with some good, though not stellar, results.

Game Forces heeft een review online gemikt van de PCI versie van de Voodoo3-3000. Dit bordje is erg geschikt om een low-end PC wat 3D power te geven. Hieronder een stukkie uit de review:

In the PCI market, there are only two real contenders from a gamer's point of view -- the Voodoo 2 and RIVA TNT. As far as performance is concerned, the Voodoo3 3000 PCI blows the TNT out of the water, and still manages to edge out a pair of Voodoo 2s in SLI in most cases. Another significant problem with using dual Voodoo 2s in a non-AGP system -- you're going to eat up three PCI slots for the two Voodoo 2s and the 2D card, although with the Voodoo3 3000 PCI, you're going to need only one. Additionally, the RIVA TNT can't offer you the support for 3dfx's API, Glide, that results in superior performance under Voodoo accelerators.

The only reason why you might divert from the Voodoo3 3000 PCI would be if you simply must have 32-bit color and textures larger than 256x256 in your games, although on an older machine, adding these features might result in unacceptable framerates.

Wez_db stuurde een link naar deze press release van Ericsson, waar men een MP3 player heeft uitgedokterd die je in je mobieltje kunt pluggen:

At Telecom 99 in Geneva, Ericsson demonstrates a small MP3 player, which can be attached to a mobile phone. The MP3 player from Ericsson lets you listen to near CD-quality audio through the stereo earpieces between calls. The player is shown as a fully working prototype and will be commercialized during next year. Ericsson recently also unveiled a plug-in FM radio, which will be on market towards the end of this year.

This plug-in combined MP3 player and portable handsfree for mobile phones is showed for the first time at Telecom 99 in Geneva. No more need to unplug your music and plug in your portable handsfree. Just put the two earpieces in your ears, start the high quality audio player and listen to your favorite music in the stereo earpieces. Incoming calls are channeled through both earpieces and the cord features a microphone to speak into and a button to answer calls with. If you listen to the music when you receive an incoming call, the sound from the player will automatically be muted and you may answer the call with the button on the cord. The high quality audio player is completely controlled and powered by the mobile phone - no extra batteries or space consuming buttons or display.

[...] The digital music is stored on small memory cards called MultiMedia Card (MMC). Together with a card reader connected to a computer the user can copy digital music files from the computer to the high quality audio player just as easy as copying files onto a floppy disc.

Intel kampt met problemen bij de levering van de Coppermine 700, zo bericht The Register.

Lack of fast Coppermine chips from Intel is causing even big players in the PC industry to drastically adjust their schedules, costing them time, money and face.

Reliable reports say that Intel will not now be able to ship its 700MHz Pentium III part until January 2000 at the earliest, while there are also availability problems with a number of other components, as previously reported.

Verder schrijven ze dat de andere Coppermines, die op dit moment moeilijk verkrijgbaar zijn, pas vanaf 15 november (toevallig ook de verwachte release date van de i820 chipset) beschikbaar zullen zijn.

Volgens The Register zal AMD op de Comdex beurs, volgende week in Las Vegas, een Athlon op 1GHz demonstreren. Verder wordt verwacht dat tegelijkertijd de Athlon 750 wordt geïntroduceerd (c't schreef hier al eerder over):

The 750MHz and 800MHz parts show that AMD's roadmap, which it revealed to The Register at Fab 30 in Dresden earlier this year, appears well on track.

Sources close to AMD have said that the company is likely to go with a 1GHz processor in January of next year. It already has the 750MHz Athlon in production, according to sources close to AMD, and could start shipping the 800MHz whenever it chooses to. The issues are marchitectural, rather than architectural. In other words, AMD wants to maximise sales of its current processors and not jump the gun, even though it could.

The news will be a further blow to Intel, which is still unable to ship a whole clutch of .18 micron Coppermine processors it announced last month, and is still reeling from comparisons between its Pentium III and the Athlon.

djAzEtE schrijft: "Ik kreeg van de Gelrevision een email over de update van de kabelmodemsoftware. Daaropvolgend heb ik ook even gevraagd hoe het stond met de eenwording met UPC. Ik kreeg daar het volgende antwoord op (die gast kan ten eerste niet echt goed nederlands, maar afgezien daarvan denk ik dat dit wel goed nieuws is voor de huidige Gelrevision klanten)":

Vanaf 1 december is het de bedoeling dat wij bij ook Chello gaan doen. Later zal nog een omkeerslag plaatsvinden naar Chello maar wanneer?????

Met vriendelijke groeten,

Michel Weelink
UPC: TV, Telephone and Internet
Network & Services

Acer Labs is een samenwerkingsverband met ArtX - ontwerpers van de Nintendo Dolphin graphics engine - aangegaan. Doel is de ontwikkeling van een super socket7 chipset met geïntegreerde 3D accelerator en T&L acceleratie, zo schrijft The Register:

According to a report in EE Times, we're not talking standard end-of-its-life graphics technology here. One of the key features of ArtX's offering is the kind of transform and lighting engine currently only available through Nvidia's GeForce 256 chip.

Integrating that, plus more traditional 3D acceleration components, into a PC's North Bridge chipset will present not only a threat to other chipset vendors, but arguably the whole 3D add-in market.

ArtX's chip, called Aladdin 7 (it will be offered as an Acer part), contains a 128-bit graphics engine capable of pumping out 12.5 million triangles per second -- more than twice what a 3dfx Voodo3 2000 is capable of, for example.

WausMaus schrijft: "Die gasten bij Novell blijven maar wachten op Microsoft.... Nee echt, Bill meent het, Win2k is feb'2000 "available for customer use":

Network software provider Novell released a third test version of an incremental upgrade to its NetWare operating system, hoping to capitalize on continued delays in the delivery of Microsoft's Windows 2000.

Novell executives said the upgrade--called NetWare 5.1--is intended to spur interest among the company's sprawling installed base of server systems through extensive support for Web-based technologies that could make it easier for third-party developers to build applications. The company said it intended to release a final version of NetWare 5.1 in the first quarter of next year.

Asus zal de K7M blijven ondersteunen, zo bericht The Register:

Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer Asus told our Taipei correspondent that his company was still continuing to support the K7M.

Senior executives at the firm denied that it was withdrawing support for the mobo, or that Intel had put pressure on it.

And so, if you turn to this Athlon mobo page here, you will see a ringing endorsement of the platform. Just how more eloquently could Asus put it?

Die link die zij daar noemen werkt overigens niet...

meendering stuurde een link naar een Itanium vs Sledgehammer artikel van Sharky Extreme. Nu zul je wellicht denken: weer zo'n pro-Intel bout artikel van Greg Campanaro (SE's hardware editor). Niets is minder waar, want voor dit artikel hebben ze John de Gelas van Ace's Hardware binnen gehaalt, en die weet wel waar-ie over lult . Hier een stukje over de FPU performance van de Sledgehammer, die vanwege de beperkingen van x87 instructieset naar verwachting achter zal blijven bij de FPU prestaties van de Itanium:

The FPU would seem to be the weak link in a 64-bit x86 CPU. Although the Athlon has a strong FPU, it can not compete (clock-for-clock) with the RISC cores of Alpha and SUN and it surely won't be able to compete with Intel's Itanium. The K8 and its siblings would be able to compete with the IA-64 CPU's as long as there are not many IA-64-bit programs. But once IA-64 programs are prevalent, the IA-64 FPU would slaughter the 64-bit x87 FPU. Considering how important FPU has become for desktop CPU's, and how important it has always been for workstations, this is a huge problem.

AMD has, however, anticipated this problem. 64-bit programs will be able to use new RISC-like (three operands) FPU instructions and a new programming model . The new FPU instructions will be able to use a flat floating point register file instead of the old stack based one just like those fast RISC CPU's (SUN, Alpha). In other words, when running 64-bit x86 programs, the double precision FPU performance of the K8 should be on par with the fastest FPU's out there.

But what about single precision (32-bit)? Well, that should be handled by 3DNow!. If developers want the best performance they should go for 3DNow !, which is, thanks to its SIMD capabilities, faster than any x87 FPU will ever be.Provided that AMD can leverage enough software support, the K8 will feature a very powerfull FPU , which will trounce the Athlon's FPU. But there is more.

Ik kreeg dit wazig plaatje, van wat een Microsoft X-Box zou kunnen zijn, toegemailt door Robert Hilgeman:

Ik vond dit plaatje afgelopen weekend op de ftp server van de MiLannium LAN party. Geen idee waar het vandaan komt, maar misschien leuk om te posten?

Chris Conolly van GamePC heeft een review van de Viewsonic P815 op z'n site geparkeerd. Deze 21" heeft een 0,25mm dot pitch en een maximale res van 1800x1440 @ 78Hz:

Now to the meat of the review, how does it look? Like all Viewsonic screens, it looks surprisingly well. When running at it's native 1600x1200 with a Voodoo3 3500, Windows text was crisp and clear, and absolutely no ghosting was apparent. While the specs on Viewsonic's page say it can go up to 1,800 x 1,440, we could only get the monitor to run up to 1792 x 1344 with the latest Viewsonic INF files in 16 and 32-bit color. When pushed up to 1792 x 1344, the picture started to get a little worse. Screen text became a little blurry, but that's about it, still no ghosting anywhere. Once again, I'll recommend this monitor to be run in it's native 1600x1200, where you can run it at 90 Hz refresh rate. If you're buying a 21" monitor to run at high resolutions, the Viewsonic P817 looks to be the monitor for you. Since it has an input clock of 360 MHz (as compared to the P815's 250 MHz), it will allow you to run higher resolutions at better refresh rates. Once again, during gaming, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two, since most everything in gaming is somewhat blurred.

Intel heeft een nieuwe versie van z'n Processor Frequency ID Utility gereleased, zo lees ik bij Overclockers' Workbench. Dit proggie is vergelijkbaar met WCPUID en detecteert de kloksnelheid waarop je systeem draait (en zou moeten draaien):

The utility reports the frequency that a processor is designed to run at, as well as the actual frequency it is running at in the system itself. FrequencyID 2.0 also recognizes the frequency of the bus speed and identifies which 'family' the processor belongs to. What the software does NOT do is stop an end user from overclocking his/her CPU. Intel's presentation states, "Remarking is a crime..." but it also goes on to say that, "Overclocking is not a crime" (still bear in mind it voids your warranty and Intel doesn't recommend that you overclock either). This version of the software not only works with Windows 9x but there is also a 'bootable' version for use in Linux, UNIX and/or DOS. You can find the utility here.

Ik kwam bij Overclocker's Workbench een link tegen naar dit proggie van RealTek, waarmee je RealTek clock generators (o.a. gebruikt op de Abit BE6-II) vanuit Windoos kunt instellen (vergelijkbaar idee als SoftFSB):

CPUBoost kun je hier naar binnen vissen.

PC Rave heeft een interview gepost met Rich Black, PR manager van nVidia. Hier een stukje:

PCRave: The pixel fill rate of the GeForce 256 isn't substantially higher than the TNT2 Ultra with 150mhz core with 300 megapixels/s or 175mhz core with 350 megapixels/s fill rate. What is NVIDIA's stance on pixel fill rate and why isn't the pixel fill rate near 50% greater like we have seen in the past with the RIVA chipsets? (~100mp/s Riva 128/ZX, ~180mp/s TNT, ~250-350 mp/s TNT2)

NVIDIA: The jump from the RIVA128/ZX to the TNT/TNT2 was huge - the jump from the TNT/TNT2 to the GeForce is as revolutionary. There are more things to consider than just the fill rate numbers, overall performance and ability to render much more scene complexity (much greater than 50% increase) are the greatest strengths of GeForce256.

Het nieuws kwam al eerder naar buiten, maar Netscape heeft het nu ook in een officiële aankondiging verpakt: de eerste beta van Netscape Navigator 5.0 kunnen we eind deze maand verwachten. De uiteindelijke release staat gepland voor februari 2000. Betanews heeft er een artikeltje over geschreven:

Code named "Gecko" and "NGLayout" (Next Generation Layout), Netscape 5.0 will finally be able to offer the same support as Internet Explorer 5.0 offered one year ago. After many delays, the latest build of the Gecko Project can be found at Mozilla.org.

Offering HTML 4.0 support including forms, and style support for HTML 3.x and limited HTML 4.0 support, Netscape is catching up to Windows after a year without releasing a new version. Full CSS and some CSS 2 support is also available with Mozilla 5. The newest web language, XML will also be supported along with W3C Java and C++ compatability. New rendering capabilities such as alpha blending and double-buffered rendering ensure that Navigator will be able to handle the latest HTML tags and dynamic content.

It is said that the engine for this newest version from Netscape Communications has been completely rewritten, making it incredibly fast, as fast as it could possibly be. Its full compatability with older versions of Netscape make it versatile and flexible. With a new plug-in named "WebWidget" developers will be able to embed Netscape 5.0 in their own custom applications.

Fully outsourcing the code for Mozilla 5 again, Netscape Communications offers developers the ability to fully customize what they want and add features and plug-ins to make this the best engine on the market.

Intel kondigt de AnyPoint Phoneline Home Network aan, een netwerk kit die werkt over bestaande telefoonlijnen en een snelheid van 10Mbps haalt. Hier de press release, bruut geript van GA-Source:

Intel Corporation today announced the availability of a new Intel AnyPoint Phoneline Home Network product that delivers up to 10 megabits-per-second (Mbps) bandwidth over existing phone lines.

The Intel AnyPoint Phoneline Home Network 10 Mbps PCI Card, which joins Intel's family of AnyPoint 1 Mbps products, is designed to provide the speed for demanding networking functions over existing phone lines, such as the transfer of high-resolution graphics and other large files. The higher network speed also enables future applications, including the distribution of full motion video between personal computers (PCs).

The Intel AnyPoint family of 1 Mbps and 10 Mbps products allows two or more users to surf the Web at the same time without the need for a second phone line or Internet account. AnyPoint products also enable customers to share printers and files, use the Intel Intercom to communicate from one PC to another, enjoy multi-player PC games from separate rooms in the home and distribute high quality digital audio between PCs.

The AnyPoint 10 Mbps PCI Card, which is compatible with all Intel AnyPoint 1 Mbps products, is designed to be compliant with the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) 1 Mbps phoneline specification and is expected to comply with the HomePNA's planned 10 Mbps phoneline specification.

As with Intel AnyPoint 1 Mbps products, the AnyPoint 10 Mbps PCI Card is designed not to interfere with regular phone conversations while the network is being used to print, share files and play games, as the data is transmitted on a frequency not used by voice signals. AnyPoint Home Network products are compatible with emerging, high-bandwidth Internet access specifications, such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable modems. The AnyPoint 10 Mbps PCI Card also incorporates technology from Epigram, which was acquired by Broadcom Corporation.

Four OEMs - Gateway, IBM, eMachines and Quantex -- are already shipping consumer PCs that are enabled with AnyPoint 1 Mbps hardware and software.

The Intel AnyPoint Phoneline Home Network 10 Mbps PCI Card, which is now shipping, has a U.S. suggested list price of $79 and will be available in mid-November at North American retailers, including Best Buy, CompUSA, Micro Center and Office Depot. The AnyPoint 10 Mbps PCI Card will also be sold through North American distributors, including Ingram Micro and Tech Data.

With the introduction of the AnyPoint 10 Mbps PCI Card, Intel is reducing the price of the AnyPoint 1 Mbps PCI Card from a U.S. suggested list price of $79 to $49. In addition, Intel is reducing the price of the AnyPoint 1 Mbps Parallel Port model from a U.S. suggested list price of $99 to $89. The Intel AnyPoint 1 Mbps family also includes the AnyPoint Universal Serial Bus (USB) model, which has a U.S. suggested list price of $89. All AnyPoint products contain Intel's powerful Internet sharing and networking software.

Storage Review heeft een review van de 20,4Gb grote Maxtor DiamondMax VL20 neer gemikt. Deze ATA66 schijf heeft een 5400rpm rotatiesnelheid, 512Kb cache en richt zich op het low-end segment. De reviewer vergelijkt de VL20 met de DiamondMax 40 (met 2Mb cache):

Conclusion? Well, the VL20 is certainly doesn't match the performance of the DM40. Who would expect this to be the case, however? Maxtor would be in somewhat of a quandary if this were the case. What is interesting, however, is that the VL20 significantly lags behind another seemingly identical drive lacking only the other drive's larger buffer. The way we see it, readers can draw one of three different conclusions from these results:

- Despite presented evidence to the contrary, buffer size has a significant impact, especially when the difference is fourfold as is the case here. Or

- Despite what Maxtor implies, the DiamondMax 40 features significantly better electronics/firmware that allows it to maintain an edge. Cynics will like to point out that it probably involves more effort and/or cost to "cripple" the VL20. Or

- The VL20's firmware is optimized for 2 megs of buffer rather than 512k and thus suffers more of a performance loss than it should. This last conclusion, incidentally, matches our own conclusion in a previous article: Increasing a drive's buffer size results in little performance increase without firmware optimization. Inversely, decreasing a drive's buffer size without tailoring the drive's electronics around it results in a disproportionately large drop in performance.

Saint Steve heeft zijn eerste succes behaald in de rechtszaak tegen Daewoo en Future Power, producenten van de ePower iMac kloon. De eis dat de levering van de ePower gestaakt wordt, werd door de rechter ingewilligd. The Register heeft de info:

Apple has been granted an injunction against Future Power and Daewoo preventing the companies' making, distributing or selling their ePower PC in the US.

The Mac maker set its lawyers on the companies back in August when it alleged the ePower's design is a rip-off of Apple's own iMac.

The ban follows Apple's request for a preliminary injunction against Daewoo and Future Power made at a hearing on 25 October. Now the case will move on to whether the ePower does in fact violate Apple's intellectual property rights and if so, whether Daewoo and Future Power should pay damages.

3DGPU.com heeft een paar GeForce SDR vs TNT2 Ultra benchmarks van de nieuwe (T&L enhanced) 3D Winbench 2000 suite gepost. Check de resultaten op 3DGPU.com.

Savage2000.com bericht dat de release date van de Diamond Viper II (Savage2000 kaartje) is vertraagd naar 19 november:

We have just confirmed with our sources, that Viper II cards will not be shipping to any retail outlets until November 19th. The official announcement of Viper II release date and its game bundle will be made tomorrow. You can see our earlier post on the retail game bundle here. Along the same lines, there should be a retail review unit available to us on Monday. Stay tuned.

Anand is terug en heeft het eerste deel van z'n Athlon Buyer's Guide gepost. Part I gaat over de op dit moment beschikbare slot-A modderborden, de Gigabyte 7IX, Microstar 6167, FIC SD11 en Asus K7M. Uit de overklok test (waarbij de multiplier van de Athlon werd gemodified, niet de busspeed) komt de K7M als beste naar voren. Busspeed overclocking is op dit moment geen reeële optie aangezien alle planken problemen vertonen bij busspeeds boven de 110MHz:

Other than physically modifying the processor card itself (or purchasing a pre-modified CPU) the only other option for overclocking your Athlon lies in the hands of the motherboard -- FSB frequency control. Out of the four motherboards we looked at (not including the Fester), only two offered FSB frequency adjustments, the ASUS K7M and the FIC SD11.

The default FSB for the Athlon is 100MHz (the "200MHz EV6 Bus" comes from the ability of the bus to transfer on both the rising and falling edges of the clock, thus effectively doubling the transfer rate) but you must keep in mind that overclocking the FSB on Athlon motherboards is much more of a sensitive process than on the BX boards we are used to.

The EV6 bus protocol is apparently not as overclocking friendly as Intel’s GTL+, at least at this point in time of the Athlon’s evolution, therefore the FSB overclocking options are very limited. Any frequencies above 110MHz should just be considered to be completely out of the question, meaning that the 124/133MHz of FIC’s SD11 are worthless because they won’t even boot. This limitation is obviously temporary as the EV6 bus is scalable up to 200MHz (200MHz x 2 = 400MHz), but for now don’t expect to be able to use the FSB as a real overclocking option.

ATi heeft gisteren de XPERT 2000 Pro aangekondigd, een videokaart met 32Mb RAM, 300MHz RAMDAC en een straatprijs van 139 dollar, bedoeld voor low-cost PC's. Hier de press release:

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE: ATY, NASDAQ: ATYT) today announced the 32MB XPERT™ 2000 PRO accelerator board for retail and PC OEM markets, an add-in card that offers class-leading 2D and 3D graphics and hardware DVD video playback with 32MB of memory.

The XPERT 2000 PRO is ideal for system builders and OEMs looking to differentiate their lower cost PCs. Traditionally, low cost PCs come with just 8 MB of graphics memory, poor 2D and 3D and no DVD. System builders can now incorporate superior 2D and 3D, 32-bit true color graphics acceleration, hardware DVD and 4 times the amount of memory.

[...] With higher performance than today's XPERT 2000™, the XPERT 2000 PRO supports the AGP 2X specification now, as well as AGP 4X systems expected to ship this fall. With its AGP support, 32MB of memory and ATI's combination 2D, 3D and DVD, RAGE™ 128 PRO accelerator chip, the XPERT 2000 PRO is the best value on the market for the casual gamer, the DVD enthusiast and the corporate user alike.

[...] The 32MB XPERT 2000 PRO, with fast 2D acceleration, a 300MHz RAMDAC and a maximum resolution of 1920X1200 at 85Hz, provides more than enough power for all current business applications.

The 32MB XPERT 2000 PRO, with the industry's only integrated iDCT and Motion Compensation through the RAGE 128 PRO chip, performs DVD decode with an absolute minimum of CPU usage. Also, 4-tap video scalers enable DVD playback at near perfect visual quality. The 32MB XPERT 2000 PRO is ideal for running interactive DVD business applications, viewing Intranet and networked DVD corporate videos, and watching DVD movies at home.

Game play will be enhanced through the acceleration of OpenGL and Microsoft's DirectX API. The result is full acceleration and top speeds for DirectX and OpenGL games.

Price and Availability:

The 32MB XPERT 2000 PRO will be available in calendar Q1, 2000, initially at a suggested street price of $139 (US). An 8MB version XPERT 2000 PRO will be available to OEMs and system builders, also in calendar Q1, with discounts for volume purchases. A DVI XPERT 2000 PRO version that supports all-digital flat panels will also be available in calendar Q1.

GREENSKiN schrijft: "Update voor 'Microsoft aandelen gedropt, Red Hat profiteert': ik las net op www.benews.com dat de aandelen van Be 85.25% gestegen zijn in anderhalf uur!":

While some people were worried when the Be stock went to it's all time low of 3.8125 last friday it seems investors are queuing now to get stocks after the finding of facts on the Microsoft monopoly and the Java announcement. At the time of this posting the stock was at 7.06 giving a spectacular 85.25% increase in stock value within one and a half hours of trading. So far 3.8 million stocks have changed owner which is a lot compared to the 4.3 million public stocks issued last August. This is also the first time that the Be stock shows more trading activity then Redhat or even Apple especially if you compare it to the amount of public stocks these companies have outstanding (67 million and 137 million). At the end of the day we will see how many day traders are among those currently trading BeOS stock.

meloentje schrijft: "Opnieuw is er een exploit ontdekt in Microsoft's e-mail programma Outlook (alle versies). Het blijkt (nog steeds) mogelijk te zijn om met behulp van een slim in elkaar gedraaid attachment rotgeintjes uit te halen op computers met Outlook.":

A vulnerability in Outlook and Outlook Express allows remote malicious users to execute arbitrary code on the user's machine if Javascript is enabled.

A malicious user can create an executable file, compress it into a cab file, and rename it to have a multimedia file extension (e.g. .MID). He can then send this file as an attachment to an Outlook user as well as some Javascript code. When the user double-clicks on the on the multimedia attachment it will save the executable file in a known location on the system. The Javascript will then execute the attachment on the target machine.

Goh, wat erg .

Valkenier schrijft: "De door velen gebruikt AtGuard firewall is verkocht aan Symantec en zal worden opgenomen in Norton Internet Security 2000":

SEATTLE—October 22, 1999—WRQ, Inc. today announced licensing agreements with Symantec Corporation of Cupertino, California and ASCII Network Technology of Tokyo, Japan for WRQ AtGuard software. AtGuard technology has been incorporated into ymantec's Norton Internet Security 2000 and ASCII Network Technology's WinWrapper.

WRQ retains rights to the product and its core technology. WRQ will continue to sell AtGuard to individual users from the www.AtGuard.com site through November 21st.

GREENSKiN schrijft: "Eindelijk een JDK voor BeOS! Nu kan ik m'n Java proggies voor school ook onder BeOS draaien ":

BeOS' Support of the Java™2 Platform and PersonalJava™ technology on Intel, Power PC and Personal Access Devices Broadens Customer and Developer Choices

Be Incorporated (Nasdaq: BEOS), developer of BeOS®, the operating system designed for cross-platform, digital media applications, today announced their work with Sun Microsystems to incorporate the Java™2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) and PersonalJava™ technology into BeOS. By enabling the Java2 platform on BeOS, Be Inc. will be further extending the benefits of robustness and platform choice which have long been the company's hallmark. Coupling BeOS' ability to manage the most demanding interactive applications with the device-independence of the Java platform will offer both customers and developers significant benefits. Leveraging PersonalJava technology, Be customers will now be able to choose from the thousands of Java platform-based applications on the market. Developers will be able to prototype applications on their computer of choice and run them on a wide range of PC or information and entertainment devices running BeOS.