Insane stuurde de met richting de Italiaanse Hardware Zonen, die zeggen dat Abit in het voorjaar van 2000 een Athlon bord zal introduceren. Hieronder de Babbelfish vertaling:

Today Hardware Zones supplies you one news in world-wide exclusive right, coming from directly from a contact in Abit. The famous taiwanese house will produce one motherboard for AMD Athlon! Here the exact words of the representative from we contacted: " As far as the mobo with AMD Athlon, yes, ne we will produce, but not before the Spring (April, Maggio c.a.) ". Given the general quality of the Abit products, we cannot that aspettarci great things! [ p.s. if you will see this news on other situated ones, you can be sure that it has been copied from we, hehehe!! ].

Extreme Hardware heeft een review in elkaar geklust van het MSI MS-6163 Pro moederbord met BX chipset. Dankzij de gezonde reeks busspeeds en voltage tweaking valt er best wel te overklokken met deze plaat. Hieronder een stukkie:

The MS-6163Pro has just about every feature you’d look for in an overclocking motherboard. The board features all the popular bus speeds and allows voltage tweaking to both the CPU core and VIO chipset. For the hardcore tweaker, MSI lets you jack the CPU to a very high 2.4 volts, just in case you’ve got a finicky chip or want to really burn in a S370 Celeron. Unfortunately, there is still one jumper you need to set in order to disable the CPU speed auto-detect. This jumper setting is not quite the problem it was with the original MS-6163, and I was easily able to reach the 66-95 MHz bus speeds when I set the virtual bus speed to 100. In essence, it’s now a one-step procedure and I can only assume that MSI left it in there for the business market who don’t want their workers overclocking chips when they should be working.

As good as the MS-6163Pro is at overclocking, there are some issues. Between the release of the MS-6163 and MS-6163Pro, companies like Abit, Shuttle and Soyo have graduated their bus speed tweaking to new heights. This new overclocking style lets users increase the bus speeds at 1 MHz increments, within a select speed range. When overclocking Celeron 400 MHz or higher CPUs, the ability to increase your bus speeds slowly can really help to extract the highest possible CPU speed. In most cases it won’t make a lot of difference, but that 90-99 MHz sweet spot definitely has its attraction to Celeron 400 and 433 owners. The MS-6163Pro does feature 90 and 95 MHz bus speeds, but the AGP bus is out of spec and you will have trouble finding an AGP video card that can handle these higher speeds.

De rest van de review vind je hier.

Het volk achter nV News heeft een review online gemieterd van de populaire 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro van Creative. Interessant aan de review zijn de vele benchmarks die gedraaid zijn, van GLQuake tot Kingpin, en ook 3D WinMark 2000 en 3D Mark 2000. De complete review lees je hier.

The benchmark results make it quite obvious that the Creative Labs Annihilator Pro is an extremely fast graphics card that can extend the life of a gaming PC. With an estimated retail price of $299 for the Annihilator Pro and $249 for the Annihilator, these cards aren't cheap. However, if your systems feeling a little sluggish and you feel the need to upgrade, an Annihilator Pro easily offers a greater return on investment than upgrading to a faster processor.

In many cases, you will feel that you purchased a more powerful system. During the past 15 months I've made the transition from the TNT, to the TNT2 Ultra, to the GeForce 256 SDR, and now to the Annihilator Pro. Each card was able to breath new life into my PC. For example, in Quake 2, at 1152x864 in 32-bit color, my frame rate on the TNT was 22 fps and is now 88 fps on the Annihilator Pro. That's an increase of 300 percent!

mbravenb schrijft: "Willem denkt dat we geen koeien meer zien... Koeien? Ha we horen er zeker wel meer per dag loeien dan hij :-)":

Prins Willem-Alexander is bang dat de Nederlandse jeugd te veel achter de computer zit en te weinig doet aan sport. Dat zegt hij in een interview met de millenniumkrant van De Telegraaf. ,,Het gevaar dreigt, dat de jeugd te veel leeft in een virtuele wereld. Bij wijze van spreken wel weet hoe een koe eruit ziet op een scherm, maar er nooit een in het echt heeft gezien. Dat gecombineerd met te weinig sportbeoefening, baart mij zorgen. Ledentallen van sportverenigingen lopen terug. In ons land is veel inspanning verricht om de topsport op peil te brengen, maar helaas heeft daar de breedstesport onder geleden. Dat moet weer in balans komen.''

Achgossie...Alexje probeert ons arme nerds te behoeden van de ondergang...

insane schrijft: "WebWereld meldt dat het verspreiden van het programma DeCSS is toegestaan."

Voor degene die het nog niet weten, DeCSS is dus een proggie waarmee je waarmee je DVD copy protections kunt omzeilen. Hieronder een gedeelte, WebWereld vertelt de rest.

In een voorlopige uitspraak heeft rechter William Elfving de eis van de DVD Copy Control Association afgewezen.

De organisatie wil dat het verboden wordt DeCSS – of de broncode van dat programma – op een site te plaatsen. Daarnaast moet het linken naar sites met de software of broncode strafbaar worden. (Zie nieuws van 29 december.)

Om dit te bereiken is een zaak aangespannen tegen 72 website-beheerders. Advocaten van de verdediging noemen de voorlopige uitspraak een overwinning voor de vrijheid van meningsuiting. Het verbieden van dit soort hyperlinks zou een gevaarlijk precedent scheppen.

Tijdens de hoorzitting, woensdag voor de rechter in Californië, zei advocaat Jeffrey Kessler van de DVD-industrie dat de schade door het niet toekennen van de eis 'onherstelbaar en zeer ernstig zou zijn'.

De uitspraak van de rechter geldt tot 14 januari. Dan is er een uitgebreide zitting over de zaak.

wildhagen schrijft: "De ontwikkelaars van de Debian Linux distributie hebben het release schema bekendgemaakt. De eerstvolgende distributie zal de geweldige naam "Potato" (aardappel) dragen":

Developers of the Debian distribution of the Linux operating system have announced the release schedule for the latest version of Debian, dubbed "Potato." As of January 2nd, no new packages will be accepted for inclusion in the Potato release. This will result in a "freeze" of development January 16th, and allow for extensive testing beginning around the 22nd of January. The first "Test Cycle" will start with a preparation phase lasting about 2-3 days in which the base disks and CD images are prepared. Next, the team will begin testing the code, slated to last about 10-14 days, when bugs will be noted and fixes prepared, but no actual changes made. Finally, an evaluation phase lasting 2-3 days will determine whether or not the distribution is acceptable for release. If deemed unfit, bugs within the code will be fixed and the Test Cycle will begin anew. "I hope that two Test Cycles will be enough; that will put the release near the end of February," says Richard Braakman, creator of the release schedule. All packages submitted after the January 2nd deadline will be included in the next release, code named "Woody", keeping with the Toy Story theme. Also recently released, Debian 2.1r4 features security and Y2K updates. Information on updated packages can be seen here. http://www.debian.org/y2k

Kijk op Betanews voor meer info. Verder is een Y2K-site geopend op deze plaats.

Mr_Blobby schrijft: "Zoals hier al eerder vermeld is Atguard opgenomen in de Norton Internet Security 2000 suite. Naast de functionaliteit die Atguard al bood (personal firewall en privacy protection), heeft Norton hier anti-virus software en "web destination and content filters" aan toegevoegd. Het is leuk om te zien dat het dashboard van Atguard vrijwel onveranderd is overgenomen in de suite van Norton (zie de screenshot in het white-paper."

Norton Internet Security™ 2000 provides essential Internet protection for your personal computer. If you spend a lot of time online-especially if you have a cable modem or DSL line-you need a strong defense against Internet threats. Norton Internet Security 2000 stops all sorts of viruses, malicious Java™ applets and ActiveX controls, and even hackers-before they can access your valuable data. If you encounter an unknown virus, just send it to the experts at the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC)™ and they'll get back to you promptly with a cure.

With Norton Internet Security 2000 you also get powerful tools to safeguard confidential information on your PC from unwanted visitors. Use them to protect credit-card numbers, bank-account information, and other personal data.

Meer info over Norton Internet Security 2000 vind je hier.

Niemand minder dan Kees himself schrijft: "De Britten proberen weer eens voorop te lopen, zelfs met de millenniumbug ":

Britten hebben vervroegd kennisgemaakt met de millenniumbug. Autorisatie van creditcards van een van de grootste banken mislukte.

Zo'n 20.000 terminals zijn getroffen door dé bug. Nadat een betaalkaart door het apparaat is gehaald, moet de geldigheid van de kaart worden geverifieerd. De HSBC bank gebruikt daarvoor een systeem dat vier dagen vooruit werkt. Dinsdag stuitte de machine dus op het jaar 2000, toen ging het mis.

Het systeem zou 28 december 1999 moeten vergelijken met 1 januari 2000. Door een fout in de software zag het systeem het jaar 2000 aan voor 1900. De transactie werd vervolgens afgewezen.

Voor de rest van het artikel moet je even naar WebWereld fietsen.

3D Spotlight verblijdt ons met nieuws dat Asus nieuwe drivers en BIOS udpdates voor haar V6600 en V6800 GeForce kaarten in elkaar heeft geknutseld. Hieronder de info:

I just noticed while browsing on ASUS website that they have released a new set of drivers as well as BIOS updated for the V6600 and V6800 graphics cards based on NVIDIA's GeForce chip, so here they are:

66-362.exe
V6600/V6800 Series driver for Windows 95/98 (v3.62) 12/29/99.

66sg204r.exe
V6600 BIOS Flash program (v2.10.02.04 for SGRAM) 12/29/99.
For SGRAM chipset recovering from SDRAM version. Does not support SDRAM chipsets.

66sg204.exe
V6600 BIOS Flash program (v2.10.02.04 for SGRAM) 12/29/99.

66sd104.exe
V6600 BIOS Flash program (v2.10.01.04 for SDRAM) 12/29/99.

Overclockin.com heeft een review in elkaar getimmerd van Trinity Micro's Golden Finger device waarme je de multiplier en voltage settings van je Athlon kan aanpassen. Het resultaat is een Athlon 500 @ 750MHz zonder het voltage te verhogen!

The Athlon I tested turned out to be a very nice processor. As a little bit of comparison, the fully modified Athlon processor I received from Trinity Micro would run up to 800MHz but would need 1.80V to do it. This processor would only hit 750MHz but would do that at the default 1.60V!! So if the processor would run at 750MHz, why wouldn't it run faster than that if I bumped up the voltage? The cache just wouldn't handle the extra speed. However, I have no doubt that if this processor got the full modification, it would hit the 800MHz mark with no problem. The ability to change the cache from 1/2 to 1/3 or 2/5 should be able to make the difference.

Theoretically, since the cache on this processor will run at 375MHz (750MHz/2), if you ran it at a 2/5 setting you would be able to run with a core processor speed of 938MHz and a 1/3 setting would be able to run with a core processor speed of 1175MHz! Now, I seriously doubt that the core of this chip could handle that without some serious cooling, but I expect that 800MHz, 850MHz, or maybe even higher would be possible with this processor. That just goes to show that if you have an extremely good Athlon, don't expect to push it to it's limits with the GoldenFinger card. It will need a full modification to reach it's maximum potential.

Wil je de uitgebreide Golden Finger die ook de cache settings kan aanpassen dan moet je een dikke 125 dollar neertellen tegenover 55 dollar voor deze standaard versie.

wildhagen schrijft: "De eerste vroege beta van Windows Neptune is aan een select groepje beta-testers verzonden. Zoals bekend is Neptune de definitieve samensmelting van Windows 2000 en Windows Millennium.":

We mentioned a few weeks ago that NDA's for Neptune had been sent out to a select few testers (And we mean few). Lots of sites said we were wrong but now we have the confirmation that early testing begun yesterday with the testers receiving one of the early builds on CD. There are currently NO significant changes over Windows 2000 (It is classed as Microsoft Windows 2000 5.00.5111 NTC in system properties), no new UI is present as yet and no new features have cropped up so far either - the only main changes are a few Mars Core files (Expected to be the main UI change - Activity centers) but they are currently inoperable and PC Health is now included (From Millennium). There is also a welcome screen with a listing of users, when you switch from user to user, it doesn't close applications or the net connection, very handy, you can also change identity "Pictures" from this new area too.

Lees meer bij Active Windows.

wildhagen schrijft: "ZDNet heeft een artikel in elkaar geflanst met een aantal van de grootste bugs die we in 1999 gehad hebben..."

Ik zal hieronder even de top 10 neerknallen, voor de verhaaltjes erbij moet je hier wezen.

No. 1: ColdFusion and RDS flaws
No. 2: Melissa Virus
No. 3: Hotmail e-mail security hole
No. 4: 'Exploding' e-mail
No. 5: Global unique identifier
No. 6: CIH frenzy: Real or not?
No. 7: IE 5 flaws rampant
No. 8: AOL Instant Messenger buffer overflow
No. 9: Intel processor serial number
No. 10: Deja News records e-mail traffic

Bij AGN Hardware is een review te lezen van de AOpen 1040 Pro DVD speler. De 1040 Pro leest DVD schijfjes op 10x en is een 40x CD-Rom lezer.

At first, I ran the three movies using the boxed copy of WinDVD. Right off the bat, I noticed just how smooth playback had become. With my old Memorex drive, skipping would occur during heavy action in The Matrix, like during the lobby shoot-out. The 1040 Pro chewed that scene and threw it out without a hitch. Not even a hiccup. The image quality was crisp and clear, audio was working perfectly. I was in seventh heaven..

Next up, I hooked up the 1040 Pro to my trusty DVD Player decoder card, (MPEG 2 decoder card made by Videologic), and proceeded to play the three movies again. Same results; this drive will accept any movie you throw at it without any problems whatsoever. Of course, using a decoder card, you save on the CPU utilization, which lets you do other stuff while you watch the movie, something you can't afford with a software solution like WinDVD. Still, with my system, I didn't have any problem running the software and hardware decoders.

ChUcKiE kwam een linkje brengen naar AGN Hardware waar gemeld wordt dat er nieuwe Highpoint HTP366 drivers uit zijn. Hieronder de soep:

Thanks to FOB2K for letting me know that HighPoint Technologies has released new, updated drivers for their HPT366 UltraATA\66 controller chip, which can be found on most new motherboards like ABIT's BE6-2 and BP6, as well as in the Soyo SY-6BA+IV. There are versions for both Windows 98 and Windows 2000\NT4, as well as new BIOS updates for the ABIT BE6 and BP6. Grab the appropriate version below:

HighPoint Technologies 1.22 Driver for HPT366 Controller - Win98

HighPoint Technologies 1.22 Drivers for HPT366 Controller - Win2K

HighPoint Technologies 1.22 Drivers for HPT366 Controller - Win NT4

Ook Koen Crijns van Hardwareinfo.net heeft een review op zijn site geplaatst van de Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro GeForce kaart met DDR geheugen. In de review vind je een flinke dosis benchmarks waarin hij wordt vergeleken met de GeForce SDR, TNT2 Ultra en een Savage2000 kaart.

Dat de GeForce een interessante aankoop is, bleek wel uit onze eerdere tests van GeForce videokaarten. De grote vraag is nu of je gewoon een standaard GeForce videokaart moet kopen, of toch iets meer geld moet uitgeven aan een GeForce DDR.

We hebben gezien dat het performanceverschil kan oplopen tot meer dan 40%. Dit is natuurlijk een flink verschil en dat maakt het prijsverschil meer dan goed. Je moet uiteraard wel goed opletten wanneer deze grote verschillen optreden. In de Quake 3 test hebben we gezien dat de verschillen noemenswaardig worden vanaf ongeveer de resolutie 1024x768 en dan bij 32-bit kleurdiepte. Deze 1024x768 resolutie begint nu echter ook net de meest gebruikte gaming-resolutie te worden. Indien je dus graag in deze (of hogere) resoluties werkt is de GeForce DDR zeker een betere koop dan een GeForce SDR. En aangezien anno 2000 bijna iedereen wel een 17” monitor heeft, lijkt me deze 1024x768 resolutie geen overbodige luxe.

Terug naar de Creative uitvoering van de GeForce. Ook Creative heeft er iets moois van gemaakt. Een bloedsnelle kaart in een mooie doos met veel extra software. Tel daarbij nog eens de perfecte Creative ondersteuning op en je weet dat je aan de Creative 3D Blaster GeForce Annihilator PRO eigenlijk geen miskoop kunt hebben. De afwezigheid van een TV Output vind ik jammer, maar als je deze toch niet wilt gaan gebruiken en als de Annihilator PRO binnen je budget valt, kan dit nog wel eens DE kaart zijn voor jou systeem!

Hier vind je de hele review.

CPU Review heeft een artikel geschreven over Intel's toekomstplannen wat betreft de ontwikkeling van nieuwe geheugenstandaarden. Intel wil met de vorming van de 'Next Generation DRAM alliance' duidelijk een tweede Rambus fiasco voorkomen:

We can never have too much bandwidth. Current processor performance is significantly limited by memory bandwidth. Future 1Ghz+ processors will be even more limited in their performance by slow front side bus speeds.

The acceptance of a new Jedec backed standard for high-bandwidth memory interfacing is far more likely when it is backed by all the major players - without the disadvantage of (an expensive) royalty being involved.

Intel appears to have learned from its Rambus experiences, and hopefully will reach a consensus with memory manufacturers as to what the new standard memory interfacing technology should be.

De International Standards Organization (ISO) heeft de specificaties vastgelegd van de nieuwe JPEG2000 standaard, die dankzij 'wavelet transformations' een betere kwaliteit en compressie levert dan de huidige JPEG compressiemethode. Hier een lap info uit de press release:

The International Standards Organization's JPEG2000 committee has finalized specs for a new algorithm that compresses images up to 200 times with no appreciable degradation in quality. The JPEG2000 spec, which will become ISO 15444 when it's officially approved in 2001, uses wavelet transformations instead of Fourier transforms to achieve the performance gain.

"The standard is now available to all developers. Luckily, we have 90 percent of the techniques specified for JPEG2000 already built into our LuraWave compressor, so we can recycle much of that technology. We will, however, have to rewrite our encoder," said Kai Barthel, director of research and development at LuraTech, here.

Since finalization of the JPEG2000 committee draft at last month's meeting in Hawaii, only minor changes can be made to the spec, so even hardware OEMs can now begin designing products using the JPEG2000 wavelet-based encoder.

A second part of the draft, which adds special-purpose extensions, will follow in 2001. JPEG2000 part one will be the plain-vanilla royalty-free version, but part two can include various types of third-party extensions that may or may not involve royalties. "Part one will satisfy 90 percent of the applications developers, but it will be 90 percent more work to engineer that last 10 percent of the job for special purposes in part two," said Barthel.

[...] Wavelets use complex base functions, with some coarse features akin to sine waves. They also contain some detailed features like pulse codes, thereby creating a set of fuzzy pixels with variable-sized features, as opposed to DCT's one-size-fits-all sine waves. Mother waves

The best way to represent a signal using wavelets is to scan the entire image for a "mother wave" that best represents that particular image. However, the mother wave would have to be sent along with the image data, thereby increasing the size of the compressed file. Instead, JPEG2000 picks a universal mother wave ahead of time, so that the receiver of a compressed file can assume which mother wave is being used, eliminating the need to send it along with the file. JPEG2000 specifies a 9/7 wavelet for ordinary "lossy" compression, and a 5/3 wavelet for lossless compression (comparable to today's run-length-limited encoding). Compression ratios of 200:1 can be achieved with the 9/7 wavelet and 2:1 compression with the lossless 5/3 wavelet.

JPEG2000 also strives to overcome the worst effects of current JPEG compression, which processes images in 8 x 8-pixel blocks, leaving coarsely spaced artifacts that spoil fine details.

Speedy 3D heeft een review van de Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo neer gemikt. Dit geluidskaartje is gebaseerd op de Yamaha YMF744 chipset en biedt ondersteuning voor zowel EAX, A3D 1.0 als DirectSound 3D:

The FORTISSIMO is not for everybody. Although, I must admit for $49.99 this is a nice sound card with a decent list of features, and a software bundle unheard of in this price range. 3D Positional audio sounded good, but was nothing special. The movie audio was decent, but did not have enough to blow me away. Finally music audio was just about as good as you can get with any other sound card on the market. If you a true gamer, and want to get the most out of your games, I would suggest you go out a purchase either a Sound Blaster LIVE! Or a Vortex 2 based card, both offer exceptional 3D positional audio for not too much more.

Dan's Data heeft een vergelijking van de Logitech Cordless Wheel en A4 Tech Cable-Free 4D mouse in elkaar geknutseld. Hier een stukje over de Cordless Wheel, die me interessanter lijkt dan de totaal onbekende A4 Tech muis:

The Logitech mouse also feels a bit bulbous around the rump, because of its top-mounted batteries. It's not peculiar enough that I think anyone would find it uncomfortable, but it's not as generically lovable as the vanilla cabled Logitech First Mouse + , which is a lovely slimline unit that fits pretty much all hand sizes perfectly. The cordless mouse is still perfectly symmetrical, though; left-handed users will have no problems.

The radio range of the Logitech mouse is good - at least six feet, and probably more, depending on how much RF noise there is in the vicinity, and on the receiver location and orientation, and the usual voodoo RF propagation oddities. You should be able to use this mouse from the couch and control a computer feeding its output to a TV with no trouble at all.

Betanews komt met de gelukkige melding dat er een nieuwe beta van CDRWin 3.8A is vrijgelaten:

CDRWIN allows you to create almost any type of Data, Audio, Mixed-Mode, or Multi-session CD, giving you complete control over the disc layout and track spacing. Disc-at-once is perfect for creating masters that are ready for commercial replication, as well as many other more common uses for CD recordable technology. It also features track-at-once recording, ISO9660 disc mastering, as well as containing a powerful disc backup utility.

Het proggie mag je hier naar binnen hengelen.

Sparkle (excusez-moi dat ik daar nog nooit van gehoord heb) wordt na S3/Diamond de tweede producent van Savage2000 kaarten. Onderstaande info is afkomstig van AnandTech Webnews:

Sparkle, the famous cheap video cards manufacturer from Taiwan, is going to produce Savage2000 based SP410 card. So, the company will become the second after S3/Diamond to produce such a cards. The main features of SP410 and Viper II are almost the same, but Sparkle will probably introduce a wider range of models: the cards will be equipped with 16(!)/32/64 MB of memory clocked at 166/183/200 MHz. They will use both SDRAM and SGRAM types of memory.

Volgens News.com zal Intel op 18 januari z'n nieuwe 600MHz Geyserville mobile PIII met SpeedStep technologie introduceren. SpeedStep is een energiebesparings feature waarmee de processor onderklokt kan worden wanneer deze op de accu loopt:

SpeedStep, formerly known as "Geyserville," will allow a processor to run faster when plugged in than when running on battery power. The first SpeedStep Pentium IIIs, for instance, will run at 600 MHz when the notebook is plugged in and at 500 MHz when unplugged.

The change is important because it will allow notebook makers to incorporate faster chips without compromising battery life, Intel executives and analysts have said. Currently, Intel's fastest notebook chip runs at 500 MHz while its fastest desktop chip runs at 800 MHz. By adding SpeedStep, the gap will shrink effectively by 100 MHz.

Tevens zullen in januari nieuwe 1 en 2Mb versies van de Intel Cascades (PIII Xeon met geïntegreerde L2 cache) gereleased worden.

Bij Rambus Inc. gingen de zaken de afgelopen tijd al niet bepaald voorspoedig, maar nu lijkt het erop dat ze ook door grote vriend Intel in de steek gelaten worden. Volgens berichten van EBN Online is Rambus door Intel niet gevraagd om de Next Generation DRAM alliance te joinen, dit ondanks de langdurige samenwerking tussen beide bedrijven:

Spokespeople for both Intel and Rambus declined to comment on the report that Rambus isn't part of the new DRAM alliance. Kanadjian did not respond to calls on Monday.

Intel recently formed the Next General DRAM alliance to design a DRAM device that will succeed upcoming versions of double-data-rate SDRAM for the 2004-2005 time period, according to sources.

The alliance includes Intel, Hyundai MicroElectronics Co. Ltd., Micron Technology Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., NEC-Hitachi Memory Inc. and Infineon Technologies AG. [break] Commentaar van The Register: [/break] Earlier this month, we reported that the relationship between Intel and Rambus is more strained than it was, following the chip giant's decision to participate in the JEDEC standards body as it moves towards chipsets which support both PC-133 and double data rate (DDR) memory.

That follows Intel's decision last September to support PC-133, when it accepted the fact that many PC manufacturers were unhappy with Rambus as a memory platform.

Rambus RIMMs zullen naar verwachting pas in het eerste kwartaal van volgend jaar (da's over 1,5 dag ) op de markt beschikbaar komen.

JL schrijft: "De AMD 750 chipset heeft een 'super bypass' operatie ondergaan, dokter Tom onderzoekt patiënt en ontdekt dat deze 5% harder loopt dan voor de operatie, evenveel als de performance gain tussen een 750 en 800MHz Athlon ":

Looking at the performance benefit the Athlon platform gains when removing some of the memory latencies makes me anxious to see what the next generation chipsets will have to offer, such as VIA's KX133 Athlon chipset. Given that the AMD's 750 chipset is quickly falling behind the times with their 800MB/sec memory throughput and 532MB/s AGP 2X performance, VIA's new chipset should breathe even more performance into the Athlon platform. The KX133 will offer 4X AGP (>1GB/sec) and a 133MHz memory interface (<1GB/sec). It's important to remember that the motherboards chipset is every bit as important in regards to performance as the CPU itself.

De 'super bypass' feature van de verbeterde AMD 750 chipset verlaagt de memory latency door de communicatie tussen north bridge en geheugen te verbeteren. Info en benchmarks vind je in de review van ome Tom.

Mr. Sharky himself heeft een update gepost van de Sharky Extreme Weekly CPU Prices column. Naast een overzicht met (voor ons hollanders niet bijster interessante) prijzen heeft-ie ook wat info over de verwachte data waarop de PIII-800 en Athlon 800 beschikbaar zullen komen:

There's been no sign of the two Intel CPUs 'announced' last week (the Pentium III 750 and 800) and some sources have speculated that it won't be until mid-January of 2000 before OEM will begin selling them. In small quantities I might add. As for AMD's Athlon 800MHz, it's much the same story. AMD didn't actually do much more than "announce" it last week and we've speculated that units won't be available until the middle of January anyway. So if you're looking at buying an Athlon 750 today, just hang on a few weeks and the price will drop a significant amount (or of course you could opt for an 800 anyway).

Ook wel grappig is dat de Athlons volgens Sharky nu opeens een 'Good Overclocking potential' heeft. vorige week was dat nog 'unknown' (blijkbaar heeft die kritiek van AMD Zone geholpen .

The Register meldt dat de DVD Copy Control Association actie heeft ondernomen tegen sites die het DeCSS proggie verspreiden. Met dit stuk zachtwaar kunnen DVD films, buiten de DVD copy protection om, naar de harddisk gepassed worden en dat is iets waar de filmindustrie niet echt gelukkig van wordt:

The move, which targets 72 US-based DeCSS-hosting sites follows actions launched in Europe earlier this month against other Web sites from which the utility could be downloaded.

The US suit was filed on Monday by the DVD Copy Control Association (DCCA), a body that appears to have been formed specifically to act against the distribution of DeCSS. Previous anti-DeCSS actions have been made on behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America. The latest suit demands the removal of DeCSS from the named sites, but the DCCA is also seeking a broader restraint to prevent sites from linking to servers on which the utility is stored.

GamePC heeft een review van de Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI neer geknalt. Naast benchmarks (vergelijking met een G400Max, V3-3500, TNT2 Ultra en GeForce SDR) vinden we in de review ook info over de overklokbaarheid van de 3D Prophet DDR:

Considering the Prophet is by default clocked at 125 core/300 memory, and has 333 MHz SGRAM chips, there should be a nice gap for overclocking potential. Using the handy-dandy overclocking sliders, which are built into Nvidia's reference drivers, we went on an overclocking frenzy. Without external cooling, we were able to clock the card to 165/345, roughly a 30% increase for the core and 15% for the memory, not bad at all. With the addition of a Card Cooler unit, we were able to squeeze 165/350, but after that point we started to see very small visual artifacts and called it quits.

Wederom een Guillemot 3D Prophet die >160Mhz haalt!