iXBT heeft specificaties gepost van de vier nieuwe KX133-based mobo's die Asus in het volgend millennium uit zal brengen:

K7V - Slot A, AGP 4x, 4 memory slots with PC133 support, AC'97 audio, AMR

K7V-M - Slot A, AGP 4x, 4 memory slots with PC133 support, AC'97 + Aureal audio, AMR, LAN

X7V - Socket A, AGP 4x, 4 memory slots with PC133 SDRAM and DDR SDRAM support, audio, AMR

X7V - Socket A, AGP 4x, 4 memory slots with PC133 SDRAM and DDR SDRAM support, AMR, LAN [break] Over release dates is nog niets bekend, maar gezien het feit dat DDR reepjes en socket-A processors nog niet verkrijgbaar zijn het lijkt me logisch dat het nog wel even kan duren voordat we de X7V versies in de winkel zien liggen.

Ter aanvulling ook nog ff de reaktie van JC op dit nieuws: [/break] iXBT has info on Asus's upcoming EV-6 boards. Some neat stuff here. All of them have that "faster" kind of AGP that theoretically has double the peak bandwidth yet does hardly anything for performance, as well as four DIMM slots each supporting 133MHz SDRAM: The K7V is Slot-A while it's brother K7V-M is the same but with LAN support (and maybe better audio, according to the blurb?) on the board. The X7V is pretty much the same, except that in addition to supporting four 133MHz SDRAM DIMMs, it also supports four PC2100 DDR SDRAM DIMMs. I note that DDR SDRAM is supposed to have differently sized slots than regular SDRAM (I could be wrong with this, but it is what I've heard), so could this Asus board have two sets of four DIMM slots? Anyway, the ... they call it X7V, as well. It's the same as the X7V above, but with on-board LAN. Might this be a typo, and the board is called X7V-M?

Sake schrijft: "Goed nieuws voor degenen die wachten op een KX133 Athlon plankje. Volgens Overclocker's Workbench is de Epox K7VA al gereleased in Azië, dit terwijl Epox hem pas in het eerste kwartaal van 2000 uit zou brengen":

Thanks to Sony of HK, he fed me with the information that 2themax, HK distributor of Epox mainboard has release the K7VA mainboard based on KX133 North Bridge + VIA VT82C686A south bridge. Below are the specifications and picture of this mainboard.

Free USB cable x 1

Free original ATA-66 Cable x 1

Y2K approval

Slot A Motherboard supports 266 Mhz Front Side Bus using DDR North Bridge to Memory technology (max. 133MHz external clock speed supported)

New VIA KX133 North Bridge + VIA VT82C686A south bridge

Supports AMD Athlon Processors with slot A, operating at 500-700MHz

PCI x 5 , ISA x 1, 4x speed AGP x 1, AMR slot x 1

3 x 168 pins DIMM for PC133 (Virtual Channel Memory), DRAM size : 8MB to 768MB

Supports Ultra DMA 33/66 hard disk

4 x USB ports, Concurrent PCI, standard with PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard connector

2Mb Award BIOS with unique "SmartFlash" designed

Built-in AC97 Digital Audio

Supports Hardware Sleep/Resume and SMM (System Management Mode)

Supports Wake-on-LAN function

Schedule Power On

Power Loss Recovery

Remote Power On

Fan Status/Voltage/Temperature Monitoring Function

ATX form factor

Asus heeft op hun beta drivers page nieuwe drivers geplaatst voor de V3400, V3800, V6600 en V6800 kaarten. Check deze page om ze neer te halen.

Thresh & Co hebben een review op het net gekieperd van Asus' V6800 GeForce kaart, uitgerust met 32MB's aan DDR SGRAM. Qua features valt er weinig te vertellen over dit geval, voor extra uitgangen zal je even tot januari moeten wachten, dan komt namelijk zijn Deluxe broertje op de markt. Beetje jammer aan de review is dat er ter vergelijking geen benchmark scores zijn opgenomen van een SDRAM GeForce kaart.

There isn't much to say here. The ASUS AGP-V6800 Pure is just a basic bare-bones GeForce DDR card. The board only has the D-sub monitor output, while the space for the flat panel and TV outputs on the reference design sit empty. You can read more about the GeForce DDR's features in our Hands-on GeForce DDR preview.

The AGP-V6800 also features the same ASUS SmartDoctor utility that is available with the AGP-V6600. SmartDoctor includes fan RPM monitoring, AGP power level monitoring, SmartCooling technology, OverHeat protection, and Dynamic Overclocking. ASUS wants to put out the most stable video card out there, overclocked or not. The fan RPM and temperature monitoring ensure that your ASUS card won't overheat and die on you. If your graphics chip reaches dangerous temperatures, SmartCooling will forcibly cool down the chip.

Dynamic overclocking isn't as cool as it sounds. Basically, instead of having the video card running at full speed all the time, Dynamic Overclocking detects when the card doesn't need to work very hard, and downclocks the card accordingly in order to extend the life of the graphics chip. If you're just bumming around in Microsoft Word, your chip doesn't need to be clocked all the way up to 140MHz, but the chip will throttle back up once you launch Quake 3 or UT.

RubenPruim kwam een linkje afgeven naar dit bericht van WebWereld waarin verteld wordt dat Siemens en Casio aan een draadloze Internet-PC aan het sleutelen zijn gericht op de zakelijke markt. De eerste prototype wordt in februari tijdens Cebit 2000 gepresenteerd.

De nieuwe zak-pc is gebaseerd op Casio's Cassiopeia handheld-computer, heeft een ingebouwde gsm-telefoon en draait onder Windows CE. Met behulp van de gsm-verbinding kan het apparaat worden gebruikt voor verschillende toepassingen zoals het verzenden en ontvangen van e-mail, surfen over internet en telefonie.

Daarnaast kunnen gebruikers digitale muziek- en beeldbestanden ophalen. "Deze mogelijkheden worden pas aantrekkelijk wanneer breedbandtechnologieën zoals GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) over een paar jaar kan worden gebruikt", aldus Siemens-woordvoerder Georg Wolf.

Gebruikers kunnen daarnaast ook een aantal Microsoft-applicaties, waaronder Pocket Outlook, gebruiken. "Zij hebben 'echte' toegang tot internet in plaats van toegang tot pagina's die geschreven zijn in wml (wireless markup language) voor wap-telefoons. Dit nieuwe apparaat biedt dus meer mogelijkheden dan een wap-telefoon", aldus Wolf.

Een definitieve versie van de nieuwe mobiele internet-pc komt eind volgend jaar op de markt.

insane schrijft: "KPN wil de ’uitkoppeling’ van Internet-verkeer gebruiken om differentiatie in de tarieven aan te brengen. Concurrenten en ISP’s vrezen dat de firma misbruik zal maken van zijn machtspositie.":

Op de plannen van KPN rond het scheiden van Internet-verkeer en spraaktelefonie is veel kritiek van andere telecomaanbieders, zo bleek afgelopen dinsdag op een discussiebijeenkomst over toegang tot Internet, die door Opta was georganiseerd. Verschillende partijen voorzien moeilijkheden bij de uitvoering van de plannen van KPN.

Centraal in de discussie stond het zogeheten uitkoppelen, het scheiden van Internet-verkeer en spraaktelefonie. Daarnaast werd ook het 06760-tariferingsmodel besproken. Via dit kengetal wordt data ontkoppeld van het netwerk voor spraaktelefonie en als dataverkeer afgehandeld. Dit om het netwerk voor spraak te ontlasten. Volgens KPN kan dit zogeheten uitkoppelen al komend voorjaar worden gerealiseerd. Voor meer informatie, lees onze papieren uitgave van heden.

Edward Schrijver schrijft: "Het ziet er naar uit dat we eindelijk een voorproefje krijgen te zien van de potentie van van T&L op de GeForce kaarten, want maandag zal de demo Dagoth Moor The Whole Experience te downen zijn!":

Just got an email from the guys over at The Whole Experience regarding the availability of their awesome demo/benchmark Dagoth Moor Zoological Gardens (DMZG). Here is the content: The WXP team is heading down to Texas today and will be back in the offices Monday morning. We will upload DMZG to 3DFiles.com as soon as we get back. Just to clarify one more time, DMZG is a technology demo as well as a benchmarking tool designed to show off the latest hardware accelerated features of the GeForce 256 (T&L, Cubic env. maps, etc.). It is NOT a game.

Kijk hier voor meer info.

Meer nieuws van EB Online want insane schrijft: "Intel is van plan om in de komende 2 jaar $800 miljoen pompen in een fabriek van Digital Equipment Corp die ze 2 jaar terug hebben overnomen. Verder zullenl er bovenop de huidige 1200 personeelsleden nog 450 bij komen":

Intel Corp. will spend nearly $800 million to upgrade its process specifications at the Hudson, Mass., fab it acquired from Digital Equipment Corp. two years ago.
The upgrades will be completed over a period of two years as the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip supplier replaces the existing manufacturing equipment with the same machines used in its other fabs. Intel will add 450 employees to the fab's existing 1,200 work force to facilitate the transition
Intel will purchase 0.18-micron lithography equipment to replace Digital's 0.25-micron lines as part of its “Copy Exactly” strategy, according to an Intel spokesman. As part of that effort, Intel has attempted to replicate the equipment and processes used in each of its fabs to minimize production errors in the delicate lithography process. “By moving the Hudson fab to the 0.18-micron process, we will make all of our products much more competitive [in the marketplace],” an Intel spokesman said.

Lees hier meer.

aFreak@Beer.com" rel="external">DaFreak schrijft: "Microsoft Windows 98 en 98 SE hebben een probleem met IDE-schijven groter dan 32 gig... als je de scandisk draait dan gooit Windows alles na een bepaalde cluster weg... lekker hoor! Zo ben ik dus een paar bestandjes kwijtgeraakt...":

Het probleem komt (gelukkig) alleen voor bij PC's met een Phoenix-BIOS die geen LBA-modus gebruiken maar de "Phoenix Bitshift Translation"

If you use the protected-mode (graphical) version of ScanDisk to perform a thorough scan (which includes a surface scan) on an IDE hard disk that is larger than 32 GB, ScanDisk may report errors on every cluster after approximately cluster number 967,393.
This problem only occurs on computers that use a Phoenix BIOS and use the Phoenix BitShift translation algorithm to report the geometry of large IDE hard disks (larger than 32 GB). Your computer is not vulnerable if the BIOS uses logical block addressing (LBA) Assist translation instead of the Phoenix BitShift translation.

Kijk hier voor meer info.

insane schrijft: "Bij ebnonline komen ze met een artikel dat AMD een rol gaat spelen in ontwikkeling van Alpha. AMD zal de Alpha core chipset gaan ontwikkelen genaamd "Caspian".":

The $1.5 billion Alpha processor joint-development project unveiled earlier this by Compaq Computer Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. involves yet another bedfellow-MPU rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and its Athlon microprocessor.

In addition to the processor program, Samsung's subsidiary, Alpha Processors Inc. (API), is working with AMD to develop an Alpha core-logic chipset called Caspian. Slated for production in the third quarter of 2000, Caspian will support both the Alpha and Athlon processors using the Alpha EV6 bus architecture common to both devices. The cooperative effort ultimately will benefit the processors and their makers alike, said Daeje Chin, Samsung Electronics' executive vice president and chief technical officer, and chairman and chief executive of API.

[break]Verder wordt er nog een nieuwe SMP-chipset ontwikkeld voor zowel Athlon als Alpha-chips.[/break]In related news, Samsung's Chin said API is developing a chipset, called Tasman, to support four- to six-processor servers using either the Alpha or Athlon chips. Additionally, the Samsung/Compaq alliance will work with AMD to adapt Athlon's Lightning Data Transfer I/O interface to function in Alpha processors with data speeds of 1 to 3.2 Gbytes/s, noted Jeff Borkowski, API's vice president of sales and marketing.

Lees hier het hele verhaal.

Speedy schrijft: "Athlon is nu *echt* de snelste en verslaat zelfs de Alpha en HP processors":

Als eerste commerciëel beschikbare uniprocessorsysteem heeft de Octan Frio Super G van KryoTech met een gekoelde, op 1 GHz overgeklokte AMD Athlon een SPECint95 van meer dan 40 (base) bereikt. Daarmee laat de machine de hele concurrentenschaar inclusief de Coppermine, de Alpha 21264 en de HP PA8500 ver achter zich.

Op het gebied van Floating-point berekeningen is de Alpha 21264-700 met een waarde van 54,5 niet te verslaan.

De Super-G haalde in combinatie met een Elsa Erazor X2 met GeForce-chip en DDR-RAM de krankzinnig hoge score van 90,8 fps in Quake 3 (800x600x32 bits)

[gF]Pikachu is blij want: "Het is officieel counterstrike beta5 komt uit één dezer dagen uit WHEEEEEEE d'r zit een nieuwe gun en een aantal nieuwe maps in Man, we are gonna love this!"

Hier een stuk uit het persbericht:

Hello, The Counter-Strike team (http://www.counter-strike.net) and Barking Dog Studios (http://www.barking-dog.com), in collaboration with Valve, have been working on an update to Counter-Strike and plan to release it in the next few days. This new version, Counter-Strike Beta 5, includes 2 new maps and a fully automatic shotgun, as well as significant improvements in the areas of ease of use, active visual feedback and accessibility. The CS team and Barking Dog have been working together to refine the HUD, improve the menus and help system, and implement new observer modes and features. Valve helped finance and produce the project as a way to say thank you to the Half-Life community and further the effort to showcase the great work of all HL mod developers. We've been thrilled with the success of Counter-Strike - the number of players continues to grow steadily as more and more people find out how fun the game is. New features list: - 1 new weapon: the fully automatic shotgun - 2 new maps: Back Alley and TrainYard, plus updates to existing maps - 3 new observer modes: classic ghost, locked chasecam and freelook chasecam - Auto-find teammate in observer mode - Ghosts can be made visible to other ghosts - Improved help system for new players

Seniorbro schrijft: "Gisteren drivers voor de V3-3500 international, nu nieuwe drivers voor de Voodoo3 2000 en 3000, namelijk versie 1.03.05 . Quake 3 zou nu wat beter moeten lopen, en de Coppermine werkt nu:":

New V3 2000/3000 drivers are available!

There are new drivers available from the 3dfxgamers site. They are version 1.03.05 . Ist seems there might be some trouble downloading them, you might get the old 1.03.04 drivers. If you do, just try again. Some servers still seem to have the old drivers. They should fix some slowdown issues with Quake 3, as well as the Coppermine issues. Some other unnamed games should be fixed too. If you can't get them installed on your coppermine system please contact me.

Klik hier om de Voodoo3 2000/3000 drivers voor Win9x versie 1.03.05 neer te laden. (5300kB)

vsmb@wish.net" rel="external">ovs kwam aanwandelen met deze review van de Asus V6600, bij Riva3D. Uiteraard ondernam men een poging tot overklokken, wat gezien de maximaal stabiele core/mem clock van 145/195MHz geen slecht resultaat opleverde:

As you can see, lower resolutions show where the P2 350 becomes the bottleneck in fill rate, but the ability to overclock begins to show it's true advantage in higher resolutions where overclocking makes a 10% to 20% increase in speed. The overclocking utility and Smart Doctor monitoring allowed the V6600 Pure to be pushed to its maximum settings with complete stability.

Matrox Users heeft een aantal vage geruchten opgepikt over de aanwezigheid van T&L logica in de G200 en G400:

t's a rumour time, so here are some: The current Matrox chips, strarting with G200 are theoretically capable of hardware transformation and lighting (T&L). Since for many people the "hardware T&L" is a buzzword regardless of the actual results, this capability of Matrox chips should be considered important, at least from marketing viewpoint. While it doesn't make to much sense to force the G200 to do T&L, this may probably be done to G4xx line chips. It's all in drivers though, and the programmers may or may not use the capability depending on what they consider to be better/faster solution (trust them, they were wrong so many times ). So, if you have a G400-based card, you already have (unused) hardware T&L. You feel happier, dear Matrox owner, don't you?... [break] Klinkt mij nogal wazig en onwaarschijnlijk in de orden. Verder bij MURC meer info over de Matrox G450, waarvan het bestaan als eerste in deze nieuwsposting werd opgemerkt: [/break] As you may have seen elsewhere there will be a new board called the Matrox G450, supposedly it will be a .18 micron chip, what it will be is a full AGP 4X device, and a get this it will have transform and lighting support in hardware. One of the things I was told way back about the G400 chip was that it had a modular design allowing extras to be bolted on at a later date, well it seems then that T&L is getting bolted on. I must stress none of this info is from Matrox so could be totally wrong but I've just noticed over on the MatroX Files (they do have inside info) the following that kind of backs up what I've been saying don't you think?

Bill en zijn vrienden bij Microsoft hebben een update voor DirectX 7.0 uitgebracht, die ons zegent met een betere force feedback performance:

DirectX 7.0a is an update to DirectX 7.0, providing improved force feedback performance and the best compatibility with today's input devices. This latest version of DirectX also offers excellent graphics, faster frame rates, and more immersive audio when running and displaying programs rich in multimedia elements such as full-color graphics, video, 3-D animation, and surround sound. If you had an earlier version of DirectX installed on your system, you will see little difference in available space on your hard drive, since DirectX 7.0a will overwrite the earlier version.

NOTICE: After installation, the DirectX 7.0a run time cannot be uninstalled because it changes core components and makes numerous registry changes within your operating system.

De engelstalige versie kun je hier downloaden. De Nederlandse update staat hier.

Waslijn stuurde een link naar de nieuwe MPaxx MP3 player van Grundig. Echt bijzonder lijkt het apparaatje niet te zijn, maar de vormgeving is wel behoorlijk strak:

The MPAXX can be connected to almost any computer over the serial interface. The user-friendly software included supports the downloading of MP3 files to MultiMediaCards over the usual operating systems such as Windows 95/98, NT, LINUX and Mac OS. Music data from an audio CD or from the Internet are copied to the hard disc of the PC, administered in an archive, converted, compressed and loaded onto the MultiMediaCards.

MultiMediaCards

In order to guarantee maximum flexibility, the music files are not stored in a built-in hard disc, but on replaceable storage cards - the Infineon MultiMediaCards. A 32 MB MMC is included with the MPAXX . The MMC can be written over at any time, is no larger than a postage stamp and is exceptionally resistant against scratching and dirt.

Bjorn3D.com heeft een log neer gemikt van hun IRC chatsessie met Jensen Huang en Mika Hara, twee hoge jopies bij nVidia. Geen wereldschokkende onthullingen, wel een aantal interessante punten:

Q: In regards to video cards requiring more power across the AGP bus. Currently Geforce cards have a difficult time on Athlon systems and 3dfx has advertised using a sepperate power supply for their upcoming V6. Does Nvidia feel that this type of solution will be required in their next card the NV15?

A: Managing power consumption is a challenge for high performance GPUs. Geforce runs nearly at the limits of AGP power today. As a strategy, we will always limit ourselves to the "standard" power of the systems. This is important for us because our volumes are so high. Regarding NV15, I expect our power to be within AGP limits again. Although the performance will be much higher, the 0.18um process will keep the power consumption down.

Q: Will nVidias products beable to rival the quality/speed of the Playstation 2 when that delivers?

A: PS2 is going to be rocking machine. I'm really excited by it. It will reset the bar of "minimum 3D quality" for consumers worldwide. It will also reset the bar for content developers. As a consumer, you'll see lots of content created with tons of geometry. So, 3D processors without geometry processing is going to be severely bottlenecked.

W.r.t. our roadmap, I can tell you with complete certainty that we will "crush" the PS2 in performance and quality by next year.

Q: I would like to know why antialiasing is disabled in the current geforce drivers. It would be nice to have the option, even if it takes a performance hit.

A: AA will be enabled in our spring release drivers. We'll announce the Geforce "detonator" drivers so you'll know to come to our website to download it. I'm excited about it and can't wait myself.

Sake schrijft: "Op deze Creative nieuwsgroepen vond ik deze interessante posting over de GeForce DDR en power supply problemen. Het blijkt dat een GeForce DDR nogal zwaar is voor een 200 - 250Watt voeding. Dus misschien wel slim om gelijk een 300W voeding erbij te nemen!":

I can't get my card to work. It crashes whenever it smells 3d graphics coming. Even 3D screensavers is to tough for my Geforce.

Wiliam Ball told me my power supply was on the weak side. I find this hard to believe. I have a 200-250 W power supply.

Has any of you guys got the Geforce Pro to work with a 200 W power supply? Is there anybody who has got the Geforce working with a even more feeble power supply? [break]"Een van de reacties":[/break] Yes indeed. Freaking geforce is a damn power monger. I had a 235W before and the sdr totally KILLED. PC won't reboot without crashing and also won't even start..PERIOD. After I switched to 300 w powersupply. Everything is better and stable.