Bij Tweak3D hebben ze een review in elkaar gedraaid van de Gravis Xterminator Digital Gamepad. Echt pretty vind ik hem niet, maar hij schijnt wel erg lekker te gamen. Hieronder wat info:

We fired up a few games to test out the capabilities of the Xterminator, which included NHL 2000, Need for Speed 4, X Games Pro Boarder, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, and a more.

We found the Xterminator Digital to be a superb controller - the layout of all the controls on the pad were planned well. Having both the traditional and proportional d-pads came in very handy when playing flight sims such as Flight Simulator 2000. The mass of buttons is great for programming all our must-have in-game functions. However, at times, we were still a bit overwhelmed by all the buttons. It takes a bit of getting used to. The Xterminator Digital can be used for any game from racing, to action, to adventure, and as we mentioned before, even flight simulators.

Philips heeft de press release losgelaten van hun portable MP3 speler, genaamd Rush. Hij verschijnt begin volgend jaar krijgt een flash memory card mee met 32MB. Hieronder een stukkie:

Rush, Philips first installment in the flash memory audio category, provides music lovers with all necessary hardware and software to immediately begin experiencing the power of MP3 audio. Connecting to a PC via a parallel port interface, Rush can store MP3 music files downloaded from the Internet or songs from CDs that have been converted into MP3 files using the included RealJukebox software from RealNetworks. Utilizing advanced micro-electronic circuitry, Philips' Rush is among the smallest flash memory players in the industry (just under three inches square and less than one inch deep). Driven by a 32MB SmartMedia Card, Rush can store up to one full hour of CD quality audio. Furthermore, because the product contains no moving parts, listeners can enjoy uninterrupted music playback regardless of any bumping or jarring.

Additional features of Rush include:

• Bookmark function - Ensures music or talking book starts or jumps precisely to where a bookmark is inserted
• Music playback - Shuffle, repeat one, repeat all, play list
• Graphic Equalizer - Rock and Pop modes
• Extended Long Play Mode - Up to 12 hours (2x 'AAA' batteries)
• Hold - Prevents accidental interruption of play or changing of the setting
• Multi-line LCD - Displays name of song, artist, album, track number, elapsed time, bitrate, & play mode (when in playback mode)
• Automatic power off - Automatically switches off the player at the end of the playlist
• All necessary accessories - AC/DC adaptor, stereo in-ear headphones, parallel port connection cable, 32MB SmartMedia Card & RealNetworks' RealJukebox CD-Rom

Thanks Indigo voor het nieuws!

Kenny Mccormick schrijft: "The Onion, een Amerikaans humorblad (fake articles) heeft iedere week een hot issue dat belachelijk wordt gemaakt middels een poster (downloadable in .PDF). Deze week, het kon niet uitblijven, een hele leuke met Oom Bill. Surf naar The Onion en LACH ":

Jake schrijft: "nieuw bios van abit . MPS 1.4 werkt nog steeds niet in win2k, USB wordt dan niet installed, niet dat ik USB-gadgets heb ":

- Supports 533Mhz(66Mhz FSB), 550Mhz(100Mhz FSB) and 600Mhz(100Mhz FSB).
- Fixies the STD function.
- Updates the HPT 366's BIOS to rev. 1.21.
- Adds the "A, EXT, C" option.
- Fixes the general password issue.
- Supports 37GB hardisks.
- Supports MPS rev. 1.4.
- Supports Power recovery function after the AC power back.

Hier kun je de zaak downloaden.

De zojuist gereleased MSN Messenger 2.0 kan niet meer communiceren met America Online's Instant Messenger, zo bericht News.com. Microsoft lijkt hiermee z'n nederlaag te erkennen in de instant messenger oorlog die afgelopen zomer in alle hevigheid lost barstte. Volgens Billy is het besluit echter genomen omdat compatibiliteit met AIM tevens een beveiligingslek met zich mee zou brengen. News.com suggereert dat de stap een politieke beweegreden heeft:

Microsoft said the decision, which coincided with the launch of its redesigned MSN Web portal, was based on an AOL software bug that could pose a security risk for MSN users.

"We have now reached a point where an interim solution is no longer possible," Microsoft said in a statement. "With the release of MSN Messenger Service 2.0, Microsoft has decided it is more important to protect the security of MSN Messenger users while remaining focused on driving toward an industry standard."

Although Microsoft took pains to characterize the move as a technical decision, it could also give the company some much-needed political capital.

Microsoft foreshadowed today's decision in public statements last week following a stinging court ruling in the Department of Justice's antitrust suit against the software giant.

Savage Daily News maakt een einde aan het wazige Viper II heeft wel / geen T&L support gebakkelij. Paul Crossley van S3 heeft bevestigd dat de Diamond Viper II gewoon met geometrie acceleratie wordt geleverd. Het probleem ligt 'm bij de drivers, die zijn op dit moment nog niet van T&L support voorzien:

T&L works, it just not completely enabled in the first shipping drivers as we focused on stability and performance on today's games.. Bottom line, today we have kick ass performance on games that are shipping for Christmas and we will have T&L capabilities in soon to be released drivers...

Compaq heeft een supercomputer geïntroduceerd die wordt aangeduwd door maar liefst 128 lekkere Alpha processors. Leuk voor de heb :

According to the Big Q, the AlphaServer SC puts the company in a position where it is a contender to sell high end systems costing over a million bucks. Compaq claimed that the Alpha chip now powers five out of the 10 most powerful machines in the known universe, and has displaced SGI from its position as market share leader in this sector.

The supercomputer, said Compaq, uses 128 SMP Alpha building blocks connected together using Tru64.

Although the Big Q remains publicly committed to the Intel Merced-Itanium platform, Alpha technology is now its flagship platform.

Meer info vind je bij The Register.

Alex heeft het vijfde deel van z'n Sharky's Private Eye column gepost. Uiteraard veel nieuws vanaf de Comdex. Een korte samenvatting van inhoud:

• Microsoft X-Box: K6-2/III CPU met 2Gigapix/sec (!) videokaart, waarschijnlijk van ATi. Nadruk op video ipv CPU performance
  
• ATi Rage met onboard geometrie acceleratie, 45 miljoen textured triangles per seconde, HDTV en motion compensation, mogelijk in X-Box.
  
• 3dfx Voodoo4/5 mogelijk met 400MHz RAMDAC, mogelijk move naar 0,18micron.
  
• nVidia werkt met AMD aan problemen met Athlon AGP miniport driver.
  
• Abit door Intel (!?) uitverkozen voor i815 (Solano) chipset reference design.
  
• MSI komt met GeForce kaart en Camino planken
  
• Athlon 750 voor eind dit jaar

Marc H schrijft: "Eindelijk een versie van windows die geen blue screen of death geeft (tenzij je er teveel van drinkt, natuurlijk)":

MOSKOU (ANP) - De Russische consument kan sinds kort het biermerk Windows 99 kopen. Het bierflesje is herkenbaar aan het label van het computerprogramma Windows 99 van de Amerikaanse computergigant Microsoft. Dit bedrijf is echter niet betrokken geweest bij het nieuwe bier en is zelfs niet op de hoogte gebracht van het bestaan ervan.

Zie de News Planet voor het complete artikel.

Met alle nieuwe videokaarten die uitkomen met een hele vracht nieuwe features zou je zomaar de weg in het bos kwijt kunnen raken. Daarom heeft Matrox een verhaal neergezet over wat misverstanden die er zijn over hun eigen Environment Mapped Bump Mapping. Zeker nu de hardwarematige Texture & Lighting engines uitkomen (en omdat Matrox dat nog niet heeft waarschijnlijk ) vond Matrox het nodig om het een en ander op te helderen. Ik licht er 1 puntje uit:

• Misconception #1: EMBM and T&L are competing technologies
• Misconception #2: Cubic environ. mapping and EMBM are the same
• Misconception #3: EMBM does not support dynamic lighting
• Misconception #4: EMBM is difficult to implement in games
• Misconception #5: EMBM results in a huge performance decrease
• Misconception #6: Few games support EMBM

Misconception #1:

Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM) and hardware transform and lighting (T&L) enhance the quality of objects and scenes in different ways and are therefore not competing technologies.

• Hardware T&L uses extra geometry (polygons or triangles) to create and/or add more complex objects to a scene
• EMBM is used to add extra surface detail to the textures of these objects and also to add animated effects to 3D scenes.

For example, the large amount of triangles supported by hardware T&L would allow the nose or the skeletal features of a character’s face to be modeled with great precision. EMBM would then be used to add stubble, goose bumps, porous skin, freckles and even sweat. Likewise, if T&L were used to model the curves of a sports car, EMBM would then be used to add mud, rust and scratches—details that would drain a developer’s polygon budget if attempted with T&L.

While some of these details could be added using extra geometry, the time spent modeling such detail is impractical for any developer and would be a terrible waste of precious polygons.

Lees het complete verhaal hier.

ImacLinux.net heeft een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid waarin ze uitleggen hoe je de iMac nuttig kunt maken door er Linux op te gooien:

This is an initial development howto for those interested in getting Linux running on their iMac DV or DV SE, this SHOULD work with the iMac 350 as well. This may ALSO work for the G4 Sawtooth servers, I haven't tried it put it might just work!
First you will need a few things:

• iMac DV 2.2.14pre-release kernel
• One of these large disk images
• Another computer with Linux on it

You can also get these items from our mirror sites thanks to Yellow Dog Linux. You should probably download the kernel to your iMac DV (from MacOS), you will need to make sure you iMac DV/350 system has a small HFS (Standard) partition so that you can install a boot loader. We used our own loader that we are developing, but we did test poof which we mentioned in this article.

Ik kwam via /. bij deze pagina over het Xetos operating system van Iwin, een bedrijf dat Amiga-compatible machines bouwt. Xetos gebaseerd op de Linux kernel, wordt geleverd met een gebruiksvriendelijke GUI en is voorzien van een speciale Amiga mode waaronder oude Amiga software gedraaid kan worden:

Iwin Xetos is an operating system based on a Linux kernel which was extended by many components and features. It includes everything what you expect from a modern operating system.

Due to the Linux kernel, you can benefit already from a large number of applications. No matter if you are looking for office-, graphic-, or multimedia applications - Iwin Xetos provides you with the right software base.

When developing Xetos we took care about the usability of the operating system and had an eye on existing operating systems. Unix(tm) looses the rumor to be difficult to use and to be just something for specialists and freaks. Iwin Xetos is easy to use - easy to administrate and updates are also very easy to do.

Installing a new application is something very easy with Xetos. When you have worked with a graphical based operating system already (like i.e. Windows(tm)), then you also can work with Iwin Xetos.

Everything is in the place in which you would expect it. You don’t have to search for it. If you really should have some troubles one time, then the electronical and intelligent assistant “Mr.James” will help you.

Even if you have to install a new hardware component, it is no problem. Iwin Xetos will automatically detect the new hardware in the most cases and will guide you through the installation process.

Iwin Xetos alread includes various tools and utilities which will make working with and administrating Xetos very easy. You will stay compatible with your old system. Iwin Xetos understands Linux, Windows, MacOS, Novell and AmigaOS.

Iwin Xetos can handle up to 4GB of RAM, is a multitasking and multiuser operating system and can “talk” with all major technologies and architectures.

For all Amiga users there is a special Amiga mode included which allows you to use most of your older Amiga software.

Iwin Xetos - An operating system for you.

Ik liep bij Voodoo Extreme tegen deze twee interessante stukjes uit het Comdex report van Firingsquad. Lekkere rivaliteit heerst daar tussen 3dfx en nVidia :

During the course of the meeting, 3dfx's Brian Burke managed to get a glimpse at our schedule for the day, and our next meeting just happened to be with Nvidia. At the end of the meeting, Brian tried his best to get us to stay longer. He offered us drinks from their well-stocked bar, and invited us to make sandwiches and just hang out, "Nvidia isn't going to offer you any of this stuff."

A few pages later...

We asked Derek about the possibility of Nvidia's next-gen being a multi-chip design, and he immediately responded that it would be a whole new architecture: no multiple chips here. By this time, we had to leave for our next meeting. Sometime during the meeting one of us had put down one of our 3dfx backpacks, but it had accidentally fallen down with the logo side up. When Derek caught sight of the logo, he quickly flipped the bag over with his foot - we'll have none of that in Nvidia's house. =] Who wants to bet we'll be seeing representatives from 3DFX and nVidia throwing chairs at each other on "Jerry Springer" sometime soon?

EBN heeft positief nieuws voor de aanhangers van het DDR SDRAM platform. VIA heeft op de Comdex bekend gemaakt dat het een licentie heeft genomen op de Samurai chipset van Micron. Verder komt AMD met een DDR chipset en zal Saint Steve zijn steentje...euh appeltje bijdragen. Grote kans dus dat wij ergens volgend jaar onze (Athlon) systemen met DDR stokjes kunnen vullen:

At the desktop-PC level, Micron is promoting the technology at an off-site location through invitation-only demonstrations of its Samurai chipset and motherboard. With DRAM makers already sampling PC200 and PC266 DDR SDRAM, the market is awaiting a companion chipset, and observers believe Via's Samurai license could position it as a credible supplier of the technology.

Jeff Mailloux, DRAM marketing manager at Micron, Boise, Idaho, believes DDR chips will show up in commercial PC desktops in the first half of 2000. Micron has said it is demonstrating the Samurai only to advance DDR, not to get into the chipset business.

In related developments, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will unveil its first DDR-enabled Athlon microprocessors at Comdex, and Apple Computer Inc. is said to be showing a DDR-based desktop, although sources said the demonstration is likely to take the form of a “backroom” prototype.

Een nieuwe wending in het Abit-heeft-geen-Athlon-plank verhaal. Volgens een posting bij JC heeft Abit een Athlon bord klaar liggen, maar zal het deze niet op de markt brengen :

I spent an hour with a guy there that finally tells me "We have an excellent Athlon board fully designed and completed but we will not be advertising or selling it publicly until further notice" WOW. He went on and on telling me about how upset they were that AMD did not select them in AMD's top 5 motherboard manufacturer list in which AMD sent reference boards to. Because of this, he tells me, they were two months behind those manufacturers picked(asus,fic,msi,gigabyte,?) and that set them back enough to give the impression to the public that they were never going to build one. hmmm I thought. The looks I got when talking about fearing chip shortages from Intel as a ramification of releasing said Athlon board told me a enough to be convinced that they are being strong-armed. But I have no nifty quotes to elaborate on that. SSo why exactly do not release your fully completed Athlon board I asked? "no comment" was the final reply. I reminded him that it is illegal in the US for a larger company to threaten a another company with false supply shortages or frivolous lawsuits to keep them from selling a competitors product. Please contact the FTC.

Het verhaal dat Abit geen Athlon borden mocht maken van AMD komt overigens overeen met hetgeen de pers manager van Abit ons 2 maand geleden vertelde.

Kwam via JC bij dit errug wrede dual slot plankje met 8 DIMM slots en 6 PCI spleten. Sterk spul :

Techweb schrijft dat Billyboy deze week Release Candidate 3 (de final beta) van Windows 2000 vrij zal laten:

Microsoft announced at Comdex Monday the delivery of the final beta code of Windows 2000--Release Candidate 3--this week.

[...] While the official launch of Windows 2000 is now set for Feb. 17, it is likely that a handful of corporate customers will have the gold code in hand by the end of 1999, executives said Monday. Microsoft remains committed to release the code to manufacturing by year's end, President Steve Ballmer reiterated at a press conference. [break] Betanews maakt het nog leuker en bericht dat de release van RC3 voor vandaag gepland staat: [/break] According to reports at COMDEX, Windows 2000 RC3 is supposed to be released today. The NTBeta FTP Site has build 2183 posted in a locked folder. Be ready.

Tevens bij Techweb een nieuwsartikel over de presentatie die Linus dinsdag op de Comdex gaf:

Almost like a pop star, Linus Torvalds, the 29-year-old Finnish programmer who created and watches over the Linux kernel, captivated an audience of several thousand Linux fans Monday at Comdex.

Soft-spoken Torvalds mixed humor and humility to promote open source code development while taking a few subtle jabs at the competition.

"I would find it interesting if Microsoft opened Windows source code," Torvalds said, responding to an audience question. "There would be a lot of positive things, but I don't that is going to happen in the near future."

[...] Unlike some other keynote speakers, Torvalds was low-key and low-tech. He didn't use flashy demonstrations. He previewed no marketing videos. He was not joined on stage by uniform-clad team members. Instead, a beach ball bounced around before the opening and he was greeted with a standing ovation and interrupted with several rounds of applause and cheers. One attendee prefaced a question by calling Torvalds his "hero."

Linux aficionados have been described as free thinkers with friendly penguins, the smiling mascot of the OS.

[...] "Over time, as open source has been commercialized, open source still flourished, because it is also about bring the users and programmers closer together," Torvalds said.

Open source gives programmers the advantage of generating better programs because of competition, he said.

"Everyone always hears that competition is good and that is why you have antitrust lawsuits," he said, drawing laughter and cheers. "Development thrives on competition."

Battlax stuurde richting PC Watch, waar men wederom een aantal toffe Comdex foto's geupt heeft. Hier twee plaatjs van de Abit CX6 Camino plank en de Gigabyte GA-6RD7 dual socket370 riser card:

Diegenen die al wat langer mee lopen op Tweakers.net herinneren zich vast wel de dual socket370 convertor van QDI. Daar is achteraf gezien erg weinig van terecht gekomen (nooit reviews e.d. van gezien), maar Oppertweaker Tom voorspelde toen al dat dergelijke kaartjes alleen zouden werken in dual slot1 borden, omdat op het bord een bepaalde ASIC aanwezig moeten zijn om SMP mogelijk te maken.

Techweb bericht in z'n Comdex coverage dat VIA in het derde kwartaal van volgend jaar de 'Samuel' processor uit zal brengen. Samuel is gebaseerd op de Centaur Winchip 4 core en zal beschikken over een geïntegreerd L2 cache van 256Kb. De proc is geschikt voor socket370 en zal op kloksnelheded van boven de 500MHz geïntorduceerd worden:

Samuel will be based upon Centaur's "C5" or WinChip 4 core, Brown said. Samuel will begin life at higher clock speeds than Joshua; it will be manufactured at speeds of 500 MHz and higher when it is introduced at, or slightly before, the third quarter of 2000, according to Brown. Like Joshua, the chip will feature a 256 Kbyte integrated level 2 cache, and will be designed for the Socket 370 interface. [break] In de tussentijd verplicht Joshua, een gefacelifte Cyrix MII met socket370 interface, busspeeds tot 133MHz en kloksnelheden van 433 tot 566MHz, zijn plicht in het low-budget segment. Verder in het artikel interessante info over de VIA Apollo Pro 266 chipset: [/break] Finally, in early 2000, Via plans to ship the Apollo Pro266, an AGP 4X part that uses PC266 double-data rate SDRAM for increased performance. Via's KX133 chipset for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro Device's Athlon platform will sample by the end of December. Meanwhile, Via's support for the Socket 7 platform will gradually wane, ending with the MVP4 integrated-graphics chipset the company is currently shipping with Trident Microsystems, Mountain View, Calif.

Techweb heeft een artikel in elkaar geklust over de Comdex presentatie van Sun stamhoofd Scott McNealy (zie ook deze nieuwsposting van eerder vandaag). De goede man blijkt over een leuke dosis humor te beschikken :

McNealy, outspoken in his criticism of Microsoft, opened his talk with a magician pulling a Windows box from a mix of scarves and opening it to expose a Monopoly game. To the tune of breaking up is hard to do, a facade of the Las Vegas strip crashed down.

"I guess Windows can bring a whole city down," McNealy said.

If Gates bought 20 percent of Las Vegas, the favorite game would change to Monopoly, he quipped.

McNealy, who called Microsoft "incorrigible monopolists," said Windows 2000 and Office 2000 will be far bigger disasters than Y2K.

Lampooning the opening of Microsoft chairman and CEO's Bill Gates' keynote on Sunday night, at which Gates asked if anyone had heard any good lawyer jokes, McNealy asked the packed ballroom if anyone had "heard any good monopolist jokes."

Corel opperhoofd Michael Cowpland heeft op de Comdex een presentatie gegeven over de plannen van Corel met het Linux platform. Hier de info van GA-Source:

Corel plans to build on its installed user base of 35 million users of its WordPerfect word processor and 15 million users of the desktop-publishing application Corel Draw to build a base for its Linux offerings. Early next year the company will release a Linux version of the word-processing application. Next year Corel also plans to release Linux-based versions of QuattroPro spreadsheet application, Paradox database software, and its Presentations application. In the second or third quarter, the company will release CorelDraw on Linux.

Corel's strategy for getting its Linux OS into the market is threefold. It will work with PC makers to pre-install Linux on PCs. It has already inked deals with Compaq Computer and Toshiba, Cowpland said. Cowpland also stressed Corel's strength in development. Almost 10 percent of its 700 developers are working on Linux applications. That's half the number of its Linux competitor, Red Hat Software Inc., Cowpland said. In addition to those developers, Corel has a localization team based in Dublin, Ireland, working on 25 language versions of Linux. "We will distribute it in multiple languages very soon."

Matrox en Infogrames laten ons weten dat de PC versie van het robot spelletje Slave Zero is voorzien van support voor Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping:

Matrox Graphics and Infogrames today announced that the PC version of Slave Zero, the combat action robot game, is currently shipping with support for the Matrox G400’s Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM). EMBM is a Microsoft DirectX feature used to make 3D visuals more realistic. When run on a Matrox G400-based graphics card, EMBM showcases surface details like scratches, seams and rivets, as well as lifelike light reflections, on the slave’s armorspecial effects that fall flat in the ‘multi-pass alpha embossing’ backup Infogrames used for other graphics cards.

“To make our engine as advanced and full-featured as possible, we’ve incorporated both techniques. Multi-pass alpha embossing is a nice fallback, but the entire team was blown away by the power of EMBM,” said Matt Powers, producer, Infogrames North America. “It didn’t take long before our other dev teams were seduced. You can definitely expect to see more EMBM in future games.”

“The Matrox Developer Relations Group had already been working closely with the 3D engine coders at Infogrames when Matrox G400 prototype hardware first became available,” said Jason Della Rocca, developer relations manager, Matrox Graphics Inc. “We showed them some demos and sample code and the rest, as they say, is history.”

AMD Zone heeft meer info over de geruchten dat Gateway op de 23ste van deze maand een Athlon systeem zal aankondigen. In augustus maakte Gateway bekend dat het de Athlon links zou laten liggen, volgens AMD Zone vanwege een leuk deal met Intel die bestond uit een dikke pot geld en de verzekering dat het i820/Coppermine platform op 1 november gereed zou zijn. Van die laatste claim is zoals bekend erg weinig terecht gekomen, dus heeft Gateway besloten om toch Athlon systemen in het assortiment op te nemen:

From what I've heard at Comdex, it looks like the reports of Gateway announcing an Athlon based system on the 23rd of this month appear to be true. I also have heard that Intel had bought off Gateway from making Athlon systems on the conditions that the i820/CuMine platform was ready to go by November 1st. Apparently Gateway is keeping the money and selling Athlon systems. Now that one made me chuckle. I couldn't get any info at the Gateway booth. Surprise, surprise.

Scott McNealy, opperhoofd van Sun en altijd wel bereid om een paar sappige uitspraken over zijn vrienden bij Microsoft te doen, verwacht dat Microsoft in stukken wordt gehakt :

Sun Microsystems today predicted rival Microsoft Corp would be forced to break up as a result of the landmark antitrust case against it.

``If I were a betting person, I'd say they are going to break them up,'' McNealy told reporters when asked about the case after a speech at the Comdex computer show here.

[...] McNealy, a perennial Microsoft antagonist, complained in Senate testimony last year about the company's operating system monopoly and is embroiled in a lawsuit alleging Microsoft has tried to ``pollute'' Sun's popular Java language. McNealy said he believed Microsoft:

• should be forced to have transparent pricing,
• should be excluded from making exclusionary agreements,
• should open up application programming interfaces -- road maps for software developers,
• and should be precluded from investing its ``monopoly money'' in intellectual property and in its customers.

The latter suggestion was a reference to Microsoft's $11 billion spending spree on broadband communications including stakes in cable giants AT&T Corp., Comcast Corp and others.

Check GA-Source voor meer details.

Na een delay van 2 maand werd deze week eindelijk een gecastreerde i820 chipset gereleased. Ondertussen blijkt Intel nog geen enkele progressie geboekt te hebben bij de oplossing van het 3*RIMM probleem. Intel twijfelt zelfs of het uberhaupt een gefixte versie van de i820 uit zal brengen, zo schrijft Semiconductor Business News:

Intel has not completed validation testing of three-RIMM motherboard configurations, according to a company spokesman today. Intel has not decided if it will rework the 820 design or change system specifications for motherboards using three RIMMs.

The inability to use three RIMMs instead of two memory modules will reduce some of the flexibility in systems but it will not limit the maximum use of Direct Rambus DRAMs in desktop PCs, said the Intel spokesman. The 820 chip set handles up to 32 memory devices, which can be placed on two RIMMs. With the 128-megabit DRDRAMs, two RIMMs can provide the maximum memory for the 820 chip set at 512 megabytes. In the first quarter of next year, 256-Mbit DRDRAMs are expected to become available for 1-gigabyte on two RIMMs, the Intel spokesman said.

The loss of the third RIMM will limit the mixture of memory devices with by-4-, by-8- and by-16-bit configurations. "This could cause the loss of a little bit of flexibility, but it is not limiting the amount of memory on the motherboards," the Intel spokesman explained.

Ars Technica heeft hun verslag van de tweede dag van de Comdex beurs in Las Vegas online gezet. Hier een stukje over de waren die VIA ten toon stelde:

VIA was damned impressive. They have got so much kickass stuff in the hopper, it's hard to know where to start. Well, maybe not so hard... Their Athlon chipset is almost ready to roll, and as you probably know, it's got all the bells and whistles of the modern chipset. And, it looks like there is a serious push for lowering the motherboard prices to help the Athlon take off. We heard talk of sub-$1000 Athlon/MB combos. The next push VIA is making is from PC133 to DDR, but at the moment, their Apollo Pro133A chipset already has an impressive array of manufacturers lined up, including an Abit motherboard that we hadn't heard a word about yet. But the thing that really took me by surprise was their new Cyrix processor. I never thought I'd say this about a Cyrix, but the processor is looking really damn sweet! Taking full advantage of the National Semiconductor patent cross-licensing, they've whipped up a Socket370 chip that threatens to put the Celeron to shame. Full-speed 256K L2 cache, 133MHz FSB, 3DNow support, and, oh yeah, a completely redone FPU. It's called Joshua and should be showing up in a few months, at 466MHz. And get this: no multiplier lock. Mmmm... [break] Ook komen o.a. Matrox, nVidia, Aureal en Be Inc. langs fietsen. Verder kan ik mij helemaal vinden in dit stukje over die zwaar irritante iMac-follow-the-Steve transparant-zuurstok gekleurde case designs waarmee we op dit moment doodgeschoten worden: [/break] One thing that's a shame is that the iMac's translucent rainbow mentality has so captivated everyone's attention that other materials that might look cool in a case, like marble or obsidian or some other classy material, seemed to me to be overlooked. It's almost as if vendors are in a mad rush to "think different," as long as different = iMac. Of course, not all vendors fell prey to this to the same degree. Suntek, for instance, in addition to their candy-colored iMac rip-off cases, showed me some prototypes for some really sassy looking, curvy cases that might go well in a room with ferns and track lighting and fabulous drapes. (Heh, there's a Tony Curtis on DVD joke in here somewhere...)

GamePC heeft een review neer gemikt van de standaard Guillemot 3D Prophet met Single Data Rate SDRAM op 120/166MHz. De reviewer nam de moeite om wat heen en weer te pielen met de core en memory clock van de kaart en kwam tot een bevredigende 150/200MHz:

Just for fun, we decided to test how overclocking friendly the GeForce actually is. TNT-2 based boards were pretty much the least overclocking friendly out of the 3rd generation boards (overclocking as in the AGP bus, not the actual core and memory speeds). You couldn't really push your system's front side bus speed over 112 MHz without your TNT2 locking up, whereas 3Dfx products could last up to 140 MHz without a hitch. Good news is, the GeForce is much, much more stable with higher bus speeds and higher AGP clocks. With our 600B testbed, we were able to push the front side bus to a blazing 150 MHz, which in turn shoves the AGP clock to 100 MHz (1/3 over it's intended speed), and we experienced no problems. While we would have loved to tried further, the BE6 only allows up to 150 MHz FSB, and our PC-133 SDRAM couldn't likely handle much more.

On to core and memory overclocking, which was quite successful with Guillemot's Xentor card. We can gladly say, the tradition goes on with the Prophet. In our Pentium III 600B testbed, we were able to up the speeds from 120/166 core/memory to a nicer 145/190, without any extra cooling! During each clock speed 5 MHz markup, we ran a Quake3 Demo loop and 3DMark 99 Max to ensure reliability. At 150/195, the card simply gave up, than we decided to give it a little wakeup call by slapping our good friend The Card Cooler on it. With the extra cooling, we were able to clock it up to 150/200 core/memory, at completely stable levels. After 150/205, the card gave us visual artifacts and crashed quite often. Still, a 30 MHz clock speed jump is nothing to scoff at, it even raised our Quake3 HQ benchmarks up a nice 13 FPS. Of course, every board is different and your results may vary.

AnandTech heeft een review gepost van het Gigabyte GA-7IX Athlon mainboard. Het blijkt om een nogal kale plank te gaan die vrijwel gelijk is aan AMD's Fester reference design. Voor overklokkers valt er met dit bord voorlopig ook weinig eer te behalen, want naast de standaard 100MHz bus zijn er geen alternatieve settings:

So far, overclocked FSB speeds are virtually non-existent on Athlon motherboards and the GA-7IX is not the first to break the mold and only offers a 100 MHz setting. As such, any overclocking will have to be performed by modifying the actual Athlon CPU in order to enable multiplier selection. See AnandTech's Athlon Buyer's Guide Part 2: Overclocking article. In Part 1: Motherboards, the Gigabyte GA-7IX performed admirably in both standard and overclocked stability tests, falling only behind the Asus K7M. However, we have yet to see an Athlon motherboard with stability that matches that of the best i440BX boards, such as the AOpen AX6BC Pro Gold or Tyan Thunderbolt.

Gigabyte has taken the standard Award 4.51PG BIOS and put it on the GA-7IX with virtually no modifications. Thus, tweaking the BIOS to squeeze out every last bit of performance is simply not possible with this board. Power management consists of pretty much the standard stuff these days. Wake on LAN and wake on modem ring headers are available to allow the system to power on in the presence of network activity or incoming call. The BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time. The CPU fan can be shut off when the system suspends to quiet things down a bit. Full ACPI support is included for additional power management options under an ACPI compliant OS, such as Windows 98 or 2000.

gdew stuurde een link naar HardOCP, waar Kyle een mailtje heeft gepost van iemand die problemen heeft met z'n Athlon en Creative Annihilator. De reaktie van Creative Labs Tech Support:

I called Creative Labs Tech Support about some recurring lockups I was experiencing with my new Annihilator GeForce 256. It seemed to lockup the machine within 30-45 minutes of playing any game that was 3D accelerated. I tried reference drivers, registry hacks and even an OS reload to try and alleviate the problem, all to no avail. After giving the technician the rundown on my system (Athlon 700 w/Asus K7M) I was told that (and I quote): "Creative Labs does not explicitly support non-Intel processors. If you look on the box the card came in, it specifically mentions Intel processors. The Annihilator has been tested with several Athlon configurations, but obviously we cannot test all possible configurations. I suggest you approach the vendor you purchased the card from to see if it is possible to exchange the card."

When I asked if I should exchange it for a new Annihilator, I was told: "Your card is not defective, it simply isn't compatible with your system. I suggest you exchange it for a different brand video card."

One word entered my mind: Unbelievable. I couldn't believe this guy was telling me to buy a different product. Honest to God, that's what he said. After discussing this conversation with the vendor and obtaining an RMA, he expressed his annoyance at the way Creative has addressed the problem. He mentioned that my situation was typical and he has exchanged several Annihilators that didn't work with Athlon systems. I snagged a Voodoo3 3500 at Best Buy and my PC's been humming like a honey. All the games that were locking up now run just fine.

All in all, I'm not pissed with Creative, I just wish they would make it a little more obvious that they don't intend to support the GeForce in Athlon systems.

Keep up the great work,

BigDave

The Register komt met een inmiddels vertrouwd bericht van Intel. Dit keer heeft de i840 Carmel (yep, dat is die chipset waar Rambus wél op werkt ) vertraging opgelopen. Hoewel het ding vorige maand al werd gereleased zijn i840 moederplanken nog in geen velden en wegen te bekennen:

The boxed Intel motherboard which supports the i840 workstation/server chipset is delayed, according to information at the company's site. Intel launched the i840 on the 25th of October and its partner Rambus Ink, heralded the OR840 motherboard on its Web site the same day.

The two firms made a song and a dance about the i840 and the associated mobo because here was a chipset, using Rambus memory, which actually worked. However, a message posted on the Intel site on the 4th of November last now only says that the boxed OR840 (formerly codenamed Outrigger), is due for release "later this year".

Intel has had a very bad mobo year, particularly with its i820 Caminogate chipset, which was launched to the sound of polite applause for Comdex, earlier this week.

AMD heeft mobile versies van de K6-2+ en K6-III+ aangekondigd, zo bericht The Register. Beide processors zullen op 0,18micron gebakken worden en zijn voorzien van een power-saving technologie die wat betreft werking vergelijkbaar is met Intel's SpeedStep:

Based on its 0.18 micron process, the new chips will feature a built in power-saving mechanism, codenamed Gemini. AMD didn't reveal how many Watts the technology will conserve. Gemini allows users to switch the chips into one of three different states to best balance an application's need for speed against the host PC's battery life.

Users will be able to choose maximum performance, maximum battery life or some point between the two through their computer's BIOS settings. Phoenix is supporting Gemini in its own BIOS code -- whether other BIOS providers will do the same isn't yet known.

[...] Like the desktop K6-III, the mobile version will feature on-chip L2 cache, as will the new K6-2, dubbed the K6-2 Plus. The latter will contain 128K of L2; the K6-III Plus will have 256K. Both chips will operate at over 500MHz, AMD said, but declined to be more specific.