Rikkie deed research: "Waarom wensen in plaats van zelf vragen? Dat laatste dus maar gedaan. Dit is het antwoord van Epox":

Geacht klant,

Volgens mijn informatie krijgen we rond het einde van deze maand de EP-K7VA binnen, en zou deze rond 15 Februari in de winkel moeten liggen, een prijs indicatie kan ik u helaas niet geven. Maar het kan nog iets langer duren, maar voor zover heb ik nog geen tegen bericht gehad.

Best Regards,

Michael (FAE Team)
EPoX Europe Computer B.V.
support@epox.nl [break] Voor de volledigheid hier nog even een overzicht met de specs van deze VIA Apollo KX133 plank: [/break]

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

insane schrijft: "Ik vond op Heise.de wat interessante benchmarks tussen een Epox KX133 moederbord (K7VA prototype) en de huidige AMD Irongate chipset. Hierin wordt de KX133 genadeloos geslacht door de irongate van AMD. Vooral op geheugen gebied schiet te KX133 te kort".

Hieronder de info uit het Duits vertaald, daaronder de benchmark scores:

VIAs Athlon Chipsatz KX133 approaches the completion. The c't laboratory had opportunity to a first testing on a prototype board K7VA von Epox. With the line-up the close relationship of the KX133 pointed itself to the Apollo Chipsatz: Windows 98 and 2000 identify it as such and install the appropriate drivers. A Athlon 500 and a Athlon 750 ran in the board problem-free, but with the 700-MHz-Version fell it frequently. Since the 700er-Prozessor takes up more performance clearly, a still insufficient current supply could processor-tutors the cause to be. With PC100 and PC133-Speichermodulen the board did not show problems. As diagram cards the Asus V3800 with NVidia TNT2-Ultra-Chip and the Asus V6600 with NVidia GeForce chip was used; both ran with the NVidia driver 3,62 without crashes in the AGP-2X and AGP-4X-Modus. The memory transfer rates of the VIA Chipsatzes were past behind the AMD Irongate, yet those of application bench mark showed practically same performance. With 3D-Grafik however the Epox board supplied partly drastically worse values despite apparent activated AGP-4X-Modus. That could be to due optimized driver to the early chip record revision or not for the Athlon, perhaps also to the early BIOS version. Almost all considerable board manufacturers announced KX133-Platinen for the first quarter 2000. The prototype showed that before the ready for the market one still waits some work for VIA and the board manufacturers. But the VIA chip seems to have sufficient Potenzial, in order to grow up to the first selection for Athlon boards. Alle Messungen: Athlon 750, 128 MByte PC133 CL3, Creative Soundblaster Live, IBM DTTA-371440; NVidia-Treiber 3.62, Windows 98SE; Irongate-Messungen auf Asus K7M, Bios 1209.

Gezien het hier dus niet om een productie moederbord gaat zullen de uiteindelijke KX133 moederborden wel een treetje hoger scoren. Lees meer bij Heise.de.

Hard OCP heeft een review gebakken van de brute Montac Arctic Cooler, die gebruik maakt van de Polar Logic technologie van HP. De Artic Cooler zit qua performance net iets onder de Alpha, maar bleek wel een heel stuk stiller te zijn. Hieronder wat uit de conlusie:

If I was sitting at home thinking about getting a new cooler for my Slot1 PIII hoping to take it to the next level, and MONEY was in the equation.... I think I would have to go with the Arctic Cooler from Montac. It is less expensive and gives great results. We have been using the "Orb" around here for months now, but have not had the kind of mounting system that Montac is making accessible to everyone. Bottom line to Montac, good work on resurrecting an "old" product that we never got to experience in the mainstream.

One thing that clearly places the Arctic Circle above the Alpha is the issue of noise. The Alpha is quite a bit louder than the Circle for sure. I don't have a decibel meter here but I would guess the Alpha is about twice as loud. The Arctic Circle might keep the roommate or significant other off your back.

Although we only show the Arctic Cooler version for the PIII, Montac is already stocking a version for the Athlon. Considering how much heat the Athlon puts off, a cooler of this capacity is almost required.

Bij de weg, deze cooler is er ook voor je Athlon.

hjs schenkt ons deze link waar men uitlegt hoe je gebruik kan maken van EAX sound onder Quake 3 Arena. Hieronder de soep:

Our friends from Creative Labs have sent us word that it is possible to get true 3D sound in Quake 3 for people using any of the Sound Blaster Live! family card. Here are the instructions:

QUAKE 3 can support EAX now - for real! Experience in with 4-point Surround. The different will amaze you..

While Quake 3 only supports A3D 2.0 it will still produce 3D sound on DS3D cards such as the Live! if you download the A2D files from Aureal. Once it's patched for A3D 3.0 it can also support EAX on the Live and other EAX cards.

Run the patch and turn on the A3D option in the game under the SYSTEM/SOUND menu and voila... and u don't believe your ears..

I tried firing a roket into the air and the turned around quicky...the sound actually goes behind...hahaha..with this, I'm going to earn some more frags point...

In other words, this patch from Aureal is supposed to allow A3D 2.0 titles to run on non-A3D cards by using DirectSound3D. Thus, it also allows SB Live! cards to create true 3D effects in Quake 3. Probably not the intention Aureal had in mind, but hey- as long as the gamer benefits - more power to them. Click here to download the patch (162kb)

Thresh's FiringSquad had een mannetjes rondlopen op Macworld, waar 3dfx ook aanwezig was. In het geschreven verslag geeft FS een update over de status van de VSA-100 chip, die gebruikt zal worden in de Voodoo4 en 5. Het blijkt dat 3dfx nog steeds geen samples gebakken heeft, er wordt daarom gevreesd voor de april release date die was gepland... (thanks AVL voor de link).

That's what we were wondering once we learned that cards based on the VSA-100 chip weren't on display at MacWorld. We learned that 3dfx has just taped out first silicon on the chips, they haven't received any samples yet. Keep in mind this is for the PC unit, not the Mac product which is even further behind. We pressed the issue a bit further and learned that 3dfx still feels they can have cards based on the VSA-100 processor available in retail channels by April for the PC, but exactly which Voodoo lines that will be is still unknown.

This is very disappointing news indeed. If you recall the introduction of the Voodoo3, limited samples were available just in time for Comdex, and Voodoo3 2000 and 3000 cards were selling at retail in early April.

If early VSA-100 samples are good and 3dfx can ramp up production quickly enough, they just might make their release date. If not however, and the product could slip into the second quarter, cutting revenue for the first half of 2000.

As mentioned earlier, since samples of the VSA-100 don't exist yet, 3dfx is still unsure which products will be available at launch. It's possible that all cards in the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 line will launch simultaneously but it's also possible that 3dfx may delay the launch of certain models like the more expensive Voodoo5 6000. Nothing has been determined yet. Over the next four weeks, 3dfx should have a clearer picture of the status of the VSA-100 cards, but until then it's anyone's guess.

Celestion stuurde me naar deze site waar verteld wordt dat er onlangs 25.000 creditcard gegevens van CDUniverse.com zijn ontfutseld door een 18-jarige Russische hacker. De gegevens zijn door hem later ook op een site geplaatst nadat CDUniverse.com hem geen $100.000 dollar betaalde.

In what may be the largest credit card heist on the Internet, an 18-year-old Russian cracker claims to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers from an online store and dispensed them to visitors of his Web site.

Before it was taken offline early Sunday morning, the rogue site, a page of which has been captured here, had doled out more than 25,000 stolen card numbers. Also included with the numbers were expiration dates and cardholder names and addresses, according to a counter on the page. With the click of a button, visitors could launch a script that purportedly obtained a valid credit card "directly from the biggest online shop database," according to a message at the site.

The cracker, who goes by the nickname Maxus, claimed in an e-mail to InternetNews.com to have breached the security of CDuniverse.com, an online music store operated by eUniverse, Inc. of Wallingford, Conn. Maxus said he had defeated a popular credit card processing application called ICVerify, from CyberCash (CYCH) and obtained a database containing more than 300,000 customer records from CDuniverse.

As proof of his exploit, Maxus e-mailed a file to InternetNews containing dozens of user names and passwords for accessing customer order status information at CDuniverse.

One of the victims, Greg Wilson of Binghamton, N.Y., confirmed that he had shopped at the online music store over a year ago. According to Wilson, he was contacted by his credit card company's fraud division last week after someone had attempted to make an authorized charge to his card.

Timmy kwam een linkje brengen naar deze aankondiging waarin gemeld wordt dat America Online en Time Warner gaan fuseren. Hierdoor ontstaat er een groot media & communicatie bedrijf gericht op internet, dat met de naam AOL Time Warner Inc. door het leven zal gaan. Hieronder wat meer info:

AOL Time Warner's brands will include AOL, Time, CNN, CompuServe, Warner Bros., Netscape, Sports Illustrated, People, HBO, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, AOL MovieFone, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Digital City, Warner Music Group, Spinner, Winamp, Fortune, AOL.COM, Entertainment Weekly, and Looney Tunes. In addition to fully integrating its brands into a digital environment and bringing them closer to consumers, AOL Time Warner will have a wealth of creative resources to develop products specifically suited to interactive media.

Under the terms of a definitive merger agreement approved by unanimous votes at meetings of each company's board of directors, Time Warner and America Online stock will be converted to AOL Time Warner stock at fixed exchange ratios. The Time Warner shareholders will receive 1.5 shares of AOL Time Warner for each share of Time Warner stock they own. America Online shareholders will receive one share of AOL Time Warner stock for each share of America Online stock they own. The merger will be effected on a tax-free basis to shareholders. When complete, America Online's shareholders will own approximately 55% and Time Warner's shareholders will own approximately 45% of the new company. The stock will be traded under the symbol AOL on the New York Stock Exchange.

AVL schrijft: "Gary Jones van AnandTech heeft een review online gedumpt van dat professionele G-kracht kaartje, de Elsa GLoria II Quadro SDR (zeg dat maar eens 10x achter elkaar)".

In tegenstelling tot GamePC heeft Gary wél professionele OpenGL Modelling benchmarks gebruikt om de performance van Quadro te testen. Nu kunnen we dus eindelijk zien hoe diep de 3D Labs Oxygen VX1 wordt vernederd door de Quadro:

The Quadro and GeForce GPU’s are remarkable achievements due to NVIDIA’s ability to put a very powerful T&L engine into a single chip graphics processor. The performance of these two units are very similar except that the wireframe feature is not enabled or implemented effectively in the GeForce GPU. Some reasonable conclusions about the GLoria II Quadro SDR card can be inferred from the test data:

- The polygon performance of the GLoria II Quadro SDR and GeForce SDR cards are about the same. The GLperf test results, and the Indy3D Simulation and Animation results support this conclusion.

- The GLoria II Quadro SDR does not have any problems with AA lines unlike the GeForce; in fact, on the GLperf AA line test the GLoria II was the fastest card.

- For the visualization class of tasks, the GLoria II Quadro SDR and the GeForce SDR are similar in performance and are much faster than any of the other tested cards. The test results from the Indy3D Simulation and Animation tests and Viewperf’s DX-05, Awadvs-03, and Lightscape-03 tests support this view.

- The ELSA driver is a better choice to use with the GLoria II than the NVIDIA 3.65; the performance is about the same but the ELSA driver is more stable and has the tuning features that a professional user needs. This is exactly why NVIDIA went to ELSA to manufacturer Quadro based boards and not a gaming card manufacturer like Creative Labs.

De GLoria II presteerde in vrijwel alle benchmarks (beduidend) beter dan de Oxygen VX1. Wel bleek de Quadro een veel hogere belasting op de CPU te leggen. Meer daarover lees je in de review.

The Register meldt dat Intel afgelopen nacht weer een prijsverlagingen heeft doorgevoerd in het Celeron kamp:

The last price cuts Intel made on the Celerons was on the 12th of December, shown below in brackets.

The new 533MHz Celeron is $167, the 500MHz chip is $143 ($128), the 466MHz unit is $94 ($89) and the 433MHz Celeron $73 ($69).

De eerstvolgende prijsverlaging die we volgens The Register kunnen verwachten zal plaatsvinden op 23 januari en zal betrekking hebben op de desktop PIII's.

VIA heeft bekend gemaakt dat het is begonnen met de levering van KX133 chipsets aan mobo fabrikanten:

Taipei, Taiwan, January 10, 2000 - VIA Technologies, Inc today announced it has begun volume shipments of the VIA Apollo KX133 chipset to more than twenty leading motherboard manufacturers, greatly expanding the availability of high-performance mainboards optimized for the AMD Athlon(TM) processor. The VIA Apollo KX133 chipset delivers powerful new features to AMD Athlon processor-based platforms through its support for AGP 4x graphics and high-speed PC133 memory, while simultaneously enabling motherboard manufacturers to drive down costs by building four-layer mainboards in smaller, more compact form factors.

“With its enhanced features such as support for AGP 4x and PC133, the VIA Apollo KX133 has been designed to allow users to take full advantage of the industry-leading performance of the AMD Athlon processor,” commented Ted Lee, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “Market demand for the KX133 is very strong and we are beginning to ship large volumes to our motherboard customers.”

“The VIA Apollo KX133 provides additional options for our OEM customers offering AMD Athlon processor-based systems,” said Richard Heye, vice-president and general manager of the Texas Microprocessor Division at AMD. “Additionally, this has allowed AMD to expand our motherboard offerings to respond to growing customer demand for AMD Athlon processor-based platforms.”

Ter viering van dit festijn heeft VIA een speciale KX133 Zone geopend, met o.a. een overzicht van de op dit moment beschikbare KX133 planken.

Ga'ash Soffer van Voodoo Extreme heeft een review van de PlexWriter 8/4/32A neer gemikt. Dit is de Plextor's eerste EIDE CD Rewriter en staat de laatste tijd sterk in de belangstelling. De prestaties van de drive zijn volgens Ga'ash erg goed, mede vanwege de erg grote buffer van 4Mb:

The PlexWriter 8/4/32 is an excellent product when it comes to speed, reliability, and quality. The software bundle is great, the drive performed well "under pressure" [with background tasks], and the read speed isn't disappointing. The drive costs well under $250 (lowest I've seen is $223) at the time of this writing. Surprisingly, this high quality drive is also one of the lowest priced 8x write drives on the market. All in all, the PlexWriter is an excellent drive with an excellent price. If you're into burning CDs, the PlexWriter is a hands down winner. For the casual user who may want to copy a CD or two every month or so may want to consider a slower and less expensive drive. 2x recorders are available for near $120!

AVL schrijft: "ZDNet heeft een roundup gepost van 12 'power portables' met PIII proc, de krachtigste kleinen van dit moment. Toshiba komt als beste uit de test. Check dit als je van plan bent om binnenkort een notebook te kopen":

Toshiba America offers two upmarket designs: the single-spindle Toshiba Portégé 7140CT and the larger, more powerful Toshiba Tecra 8100. The 7140CT shares hardware with earlier Portégé models, and the 8100 is fairly compatible with earlier Tecras. Both ship with the latest version of Intel's desktop management application, LANdesk Client Manager, and come with a variety of core components. The unsurpassed value for the dollar makes these machines our Editors' Choices.

AVL schrijft: "AMD heeft een artikel aan de Athlon FAQ toegevoegd, waarin AMD bekend maakt wat het dit jaar met de Athlon van plan is. Publiek geheim bekend gemaakt, zullen we maar zeggen":

In 2000, AMD plans to introduce differentiated versions of the AMD Athlon™ processor based on three new processor cores. These three new cores are codenamed Thunderbird, Spitfire and Mustang.

Thunderbird is planned to be a high-performance version of the AMD Athlon processor with integrated, full-speed L2 cache. Both Slot and Socket A implementations are possible Thunderbird will be targeted at the performance workstation and desktop markets.

Spitfire is planned to be a value version of the AMD Athlon processor with integrated, full-speed L2 cache. Spitfire is planned for Socket A implementation only. Spitfire will be targeted at the value desktop market.

Mustang is planned to be an enhanced version of Thunderbird, featuring a reduced core size, lower power requirements and up to 2MB of full-speed, on-die L2 cache. Both Slot and Socket A implementations are possible. Multiple versions of the Mustang core are planned to be targeted at the high-performance server/workstation, value and high-performance desktop, and mobile markets.

biobak kwam langs fietsen met deze verse Win9x drivers, die Asus voor de V3400, V3800 en V6600 gaar heeft gebakken. De drivers zijn gebaseerd op de v3.66 Detonator reference drivers van nVidia en kunnen hier naar binnen gelepeld worden:

1. Now support V3400 and V3800, but D3D VR does not work on V3400.
2. Option added in both UI and OSD to enable or disable OpenGL color setting.

Yep, alwéér een nieuwe MP3 speler. Deze hier leest MP3'tjes vanaf CD, CD-R of CD-RW (thanks biobak voor de tip):

Introducing the revolutionary MAMBO-X P300 Portable MP3 CD Player. This exciting new device is the first and only portable CD player that is able to play CDs in multiple formats; from standard music CDs to trendy MP3 files. It requires no computer or internet connection. Users can enjoy their favorite tunes any place, and any time.

MAMBO-X is the next generation MP3 player. It equips features like 45-second Electronic Shock Absorption, an Infared remote control, title and artist display, Superior Ultra Bass Processing (SUB), CD-RW compatibility, and much more..

Specs van de MamboX P300 player vind je op MamboX.com.

Ford rijdt letterlijk en figuurlijk de digitale snelweg op, want al hun modellen zullen binnen twee tot drie jaar uitgerust worden met internet toegang. Dit werd door Ford opperhoofd J. Nasser bekend gemaakt op de autotentoonstelling in Detroit (thanks denhis voor de tip):

De eerste modellen die ook de elektronische snelweg op kunnen, moeten in september al van de band rollen.

Ook de modellen van Jaguar en Volvo, die beide onder Ford vallen, zullen uitgerust worden met internettoegang. Behalve een mogelijkheid om het World Wide Web op te kunnen, worden alle modellen ook uitgerust met onder meer een satellietnavigatiesysteem.

Mocht de automobilist te veel afgeleid worden en een ongeluk krijgen, dan heeft Ford ook daar een futuristische oplossing voor bedacht. Wanneer de airbag zichzelf opblaast, zendt de wagen een signaal uit waardoor die gelokaliseerd kan worden. De bestuurder kan vervolgens met een alarmknop de hulpdiensten waarschuwen.