Ace's Hardware meldt dat het KX133 bord van Epox inmiddels in Japan verkrijgbaar is. De K7XA heeft 5 PCI slots, 1xISA, 1xAMR, 1xAGP en drie keer DIMM:

Check Akiba's PC Hotline voor meer foto's (thanks jellyshock voor de tip).

Jason Clark van AnandTech heeft zonet een review online geplaatst van de ATi TV Wonder PCI TV-tuner kaart. Afgezien van wat driver gepiel bleek de kaart vrij goed zijn werk te doen:

Overall, this card has decent features; and with the latest drivers, it is stable. The price is fair too, at a price of about $100 US. The card does some nifty things, like multiple channel display where it will display mini shots of all the active channels. It's a toy and really nothing more. Capturing worked well, along with the scheduling functionality. One thing to keep in mind, though, is if you don't get a card with their newer updated drivers, you are going to have some hoops to jump through to get the newer drivers. In conclusion, if you are looking for a TV card with features gallore, this one should make it on your list, despite the driver problems.

afterburn kwam ons een linkje brengen naar deze site alwaar je een zeer handige guide kan vinden met alle beschikbare Athlon Goldfinger Devices, inclusief pics, info, prijs en links naar de bijbehordende websites. Erg handig dus als je op zoek bent naar een van deze goddelijke overclock plaatjes .

Hardware-One informeert ons uitgebreid over de kwaliteiten van de Matrox Marvel G400-TV video editing kaart met ingebakken TV-tuner. Hieronder vast een gedeelte, lees hier verder.

If you are a hard core gamer (especially the 3D fragmaster type), this card is not for you. The G400 chipset is a little past its time – it does not deliver the raw power required for the latest and tomorrow’s games.

Otherwise, the Matrox Marvel G400-TV is, in my humble opinion, the best “all-in-one” solution available at this point in time. You can just about get going with the latest 3D games with some eye candy compromises, it delivers good video capture quality, top quality video output, a decent TV tuner and good DVD playback. Plus, it is the only “all-in-one” solution for the PC with DualHead capabilities.

But (there is always a But!), it does come with a hefty price tag (at the time of writing this review, this card cost nearly SGD600 retail). If you have a large hard disk, and can find some use for all the features – in particular the DualHead feature – then this card makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, there are cheaper alternatives that will do the job just fine.

Hilko schrijft: "Gisteren kon je de specificaties van Asus K7V-RM al vinden. Nu dan de echte K7V. Het bord heeft niet 3, maar 5 PCI sloten, 1 AMR slot en een AGP. Het ISA slot is nu dan eindelijk verdwenen. Naast de bovenste 2 PCI sloten kun je duidelijk de connectors zijn voor de onboard sound AC'97 die in de KX133 chipset is geintegreerd. Zeer waarschijnlijk zal ook van dit board een versie ZONDER de audio connectoren te krijgen zijn zoals dat ook voor de K7M geldt."

vsmb@wish.net" rel="external">ovs bracht een link je naar deze tot 1GHz overgeklokte Athlon 550. Dit keer niet het werk van een losgeslagen Japanner, maar van een noorderling uit Sverige:

Uncle Steve geeft blijk van zijn streven naar vrijheid van innovatie door het prachtige idee achter Roger Wilco te immiteren. De komende versie van DirectX zullen namelijk uitgerust worden met DirectPlay Voice, een real-time voice technologie waarmee spelers op en rond het virtuele slachtveld gezellig met elkaar kunnen keuvelen:

Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to incorporate real-time voice techno logy, called DirectPlay Voice, into the next version of its popular Microsoft DirectX suite of multimedia application programming interfaces (APIs). The innovation was adapted from the Battlefield Communicator (BattleCom) application created by ShadowFactor Software Inc., a Canadian company acquired by Microsoft in June 1999. The new DirectPlay Voice technology will be integrated into the DirectPlay networking API in DirectX and optimized for use in multiplayer games.

``With the addition of this technology to the DirectPlay API in DirectX, Microsoft will provide game developers with a powerful set of programming interfaces to cleanly integrate voice technology into their games,'' said Paul Donlan, program manager for DirectX at Microsoft. ``Real-time voice communication between players will greatly enhance the gameplay experience. Imagine table talk during an online bridge game or squad collaboration during World War II-era flying games such as 'Combat Flight Simulator.' Once embedded into DirectX, voice technology will bring multiplayer gaming to a new level.''

In addition to enhancing PC games, the incorporation of voice technology into DirectX will enable computers based on the Microsoft Windows® operating system to be used for the development and operation of additional PC-to-PC voice solutions, including voice- rich Web pages, real-time document sharing with voice collaboration, and Web-based customer-service voice applications.

The BattleCom voice application has been available to consumers for purchase though the ShadowFactor Web site since 1997. However, effective Feb. 18, 2000, Microsoft will offer BattleCom as a free* download at http://www.shadowfactor.com/. The ShadowFactor Web site will continue to function as the distribution site for BattleCom until the release of the next version of DirectX, scheduled for this summer. At that time, BattleCom and the ShadowFactor Web site will be phased out in lieu of voice technology applications derived from the next version of DirectX.

GA-Source heeft een editorial gepost over de recente discussies met betrekking tot de T&L prestaties van de GeForce. Twee weken geleden bleek uit benchmarks van HardOCP dat de GeForce met een snelle processor en hardware Transforms & Lighting in 3DMark 2000 trager presteerde dan met software T&L. Of er harde conclusies uit deze bevindingen getrokken kunnen worden hangt uiteraard af van de vraag of 3DMark 2000 representatief is voor de werking van de gemiddelde 3D engine:

With a fast enough processor (over 700mhz), does the GeForce do T&L faster with its GPU turned off? All of the evidence we can find looks that way. However, just the same, with a slower processor and the GPU turned on, the T&L specific numbers hardly change at all even if the CPU is significantly slower. As the first generation of the GPU, and one existing before there is any significant amount of software that supports it, I am not surprised if its performance looks to be less than stellar. Something to remember is that S3's Virge chip was one of the first chips to support 3D acceleration, and in the first synthetic benchmarks it looked faster than anything. Only a few months later, when the software titles that actual game developers wrote appeared we all realized that the Virge was not the "screamer" it appeared to be. Does this mean the GeForce sucks? Absolutely not, but it may be a little early to buy it "for hardware T&L support".

By the same token, 3D Mark 2000 implementation of T&L testing can be viewed as flawed to an extent, as it is using a game engine that has not actually been used in any game release as of today. Its all well and good to say that it uses a game engine, but it would be nice to see a game based on that engine. Perhaps in the future they can do some licensing with id and Epic to license the Quake III and Unreal Tournament engines to run the same type tests through the various engines. Until that time comes, I think 3DMark is a pretty valid OVERALL benchmark, so long as you are using the overall 3DMark score. Trying to go deep into any one specific test out of the bunch doesn't necessarily show much of anything other than HOW WELL IT PERFORMS ON THAT TEST.

Sigma Designs, fabrikant van de welbekende REALmagic Hollywood+ DVD decoder, heeft bekend gemaakt dat het Linux ondersteuning zal toevoegen aan haar REALmagic NetStream 2000 en EM8400 MPEG-2/DVD decoder chips. Hier de rauwe soep uit de press release, goed om mee wakker te worden op deze vrolijke zondagochtend:

Sigma Designsâ, Inc. (Nasdaq: SIGM), a recognized leader in digital video solutions, announced today that it will add Linux support to its new REALmagicâ NetStreamÔ 2000 card and EM8400 progressive MPEG-2/DVD decoder chip. Sigma will demonstrate Linux DVD playback at InfoValue Computing’s Booth 274-276 during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo this week at New York’s Jacob Javits Center.

Additionally, Sigma and Eagle Wireless International (Nasdaq: EGLW) have announced that Eagle has selected Sigma’s EM8400 chip for its Webflyer Linux-based Convergence Set-Top Box products. The Eagle Wireless CSTB™ featuring REALmagic decoder silicon on the motherboard for DVD and streaming MPEG-2 playback is designed for residential deployment by broadband ISPs. Eagle chose Sigma’s REALmagic decoder silicon to help ensure that the Webflyer Linux set-top box meets customers’ video quality requirements.

“Eagle is extremely pleased that Sigma is supporting a Linux driver for the EM8400 chip used in Eagle’s convergent set-top box (CSTB),” stated Dr. Dean H. Cubley, president and chief executive officer of Eagle Wireless. “Eagle has already received large orders for the Linux-based version of our Webflyer set-top box, and the excellent support of Sigma Designs as our technology partner reinforces the timely delivery of these orders. In addition, Eagle is looking forward to incorporating the Linux driver in a wide range of set-top box and Internet access products in the near future.” For more information, visit the Eagle Wireless website at www.eglw.com.

Sigma’s NetStream 2000 card, which includes the EM8400 chip, is the first MPEG-2/DVD playback product to support the Linux operating system. NetStream 2000 is specifically designed for flawless-quality MPEG-2 and progressive DVD digital video playback on VGA monitors and TV screens. It is an affordable, plug-and-play solution for client playback of streaming video across Ethernet and ATM networks. NetStream 2000 also features a powerful software toolkit that supports high performance, interactive digital video applications such as kiosks, video walls, ATM machines, and corporate training.

Sigma's EM8400 is a highly integrated decoder for DVD and MPEG-2 video. Its feature set ensures that it can be incorporated into a wide variety of set-top digital video appliances at a lower cost than competitive parts. Further increasing its popularity is DVD and streaming video software support for a wide range of platforms, including interactive TV software provided by Liberate TV Navigator and Microsoft TV, as well as drivers for operating systems such as Windows 95/98/NT4.0/2000 and CE, VxWorks, QNX, and Linux. This enables not only standalone DVD player designs but also integrated designs that support web browsing with video in a window, video over ADSL, digital VCRs, interactive television, and more.

“The real strength of Linux is its strong community,” noted Marshall Goldberg, Sigma’s director of marketing. “The key to our success with Linux lies in understanding and working with this community.”

Linux, the Unix derivative developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, is becoming an increasingly popular platform for businesses because it is a cost-effective, open-standard operating system that delivers scalability and reliability. Linux installations tripled to 15 million users last year; and International Data Corp. (IDC), which named Linux the fastest-growing server operating environment in 1998, estimates that Linux accounts for 17 percent of server installations and that there will be an annual growth rate of 25 percent.

“Demand for Linux has been very strong from both OEM and end-user customers,” said William K. Wong, Sigma’s vice president of marketing. “Our silicon is ideal for a wide range of applications that Linux supports, such as analog video servers, streaming video clients, and desktop computing, and we’re delighted to be able to announce a Linux design win.”

Availability

Samples of the EM8400 are available for immediate delivery, and production quantities are available 30 days ARO.

Supporting a wide range of video servers as well as DVD-Video, NetStream 2000 is available for immediate delivery through major resellers and distributors worldwide.

The developer release of the Linux driver is expected by February 28, 2000, and end-user availability for most Linux graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is expected by Q2/2000.

Thanx to a_Taxman@hotmail.com" rel="external">Da_Taxman voor het linkje!

GA-Source heeft een review van de met features volgetankte Asus V6600 Deluxe videokaart neer gemikt. Naast een TV-Out heeft de V6600 Deluxe een ingebakken video-capture en worden er 3D Shutterglazen meegeleverd. Dit brilletje bleek naar behoren te functioneren:

The VR glasses performed admirably well adding a sense of depth to Direct3D games that was easily noticeable. I found that playing with the glasses in UT did make the game a little bit more visually appealing but it did take away from the ability to aim. There is one major downside to the VR glasses and that is the fact that they have to flicker constantly to give the VR effect. Unfortunately if your monitor's refresh rate is not high enough this can be very unsettling. The first time I tried them I got a headache just from watching the demo in 3dmark 2000. It is a neat feature, but for me it wasn't worth the added pain. This of course is just my individual response and I have heard from many people that it really differs from individual to individual on whether or not the flickering effect will bother you.

RikY schrijft: "Matrox heeft nieuwe drivers voor de diverse Marvel kaartjes op het net gegooid. Voor NT4 nieuwe display drivers en VidTools, en voor W9x alleen nieuwe VidTools. Hopenlijk binnenkort ook W2k drivers!?".

Voor de volledigheid hier wat copy/paste uit de release notes van de nieuwe Video Tools voor de Marvel G400-TV, Marvel G200, Marvel G200-TV en Rainbuw Runner G-series:

Description of release

Supported with Display Driver 5.41.008 (Win9x)

Supported with Display Driver 4.35.18 (WinNT 4.0 SP4 and up)

Main Fixes

Decompression artifacts were sometimes visible when capturing at high data rate (loss of image quality ).

PAL - Visible field inversion in both TV Input and Line Input.

PC VCR Daily and weekly timer program management.

Main known issues

Decompression artifacts in the top left corner of the video window upon playback.

Green flashes are sometimes visible on TV Output.

Certain A/V synchronization problems may occur when using WDM audio drivers to capture.

No WDM audio support with Avid Cinema.

Elliott Lee Hazen, één der Anandianen, heeft een review van Fikkies KW15 moederplankje neer geplant. Dit bord is gebaseerd op de i810E chipset met geïntegreerde video decelerator en zonder extern AGP slot, reden voor ons tweakers om twee keer te . Wel leuk is de combinatie slot-1 / socket370 op één bord, hoewel we dit ook al bij een aantal andere fabrikanten hebben gezien. De tweakers die toch op een of andere manier met dit bord opgezadeld raken zullen zich storen aan de gebrekkige overklokbaarheid:

The lack of FSB options, especially when overclocking a 66 MHz CPU was noticed. Overclockers may be a bit disappointed that the KW15 does not support any sort of manipulation of the CPU's core voltage. This feat can be accomplished by motherboard manufacturers, but it does take a little time and effort to implement. However, with the lack of AGP support, overclockers are not the most likely patrons of i810E boards.

This board crashed multiple times when run at 550 MHz and when overclocked. The board would not run our PIII 550E at 133 MHz, instead only running up to 117 MHz. However, the 733 MHz Pentium III would boot into Windows. Again, this situation suggests that the Slot-1 connector is more efficient than the Socket-370, which ran very poorly in our tests.

insane schrijft: "GamePC heeft een reviewtje van de Athlon 800 in elkaar gedraaid, waarin deze proc wordt vergeleken met een Pentium III 733 op i820 bord met SDRAM en Rambus. De athlon wint, maar wel met veel moeite":

The Athlon 800 is a really, really fast processor, but not as fast as we have come to expect from previous Athlons. The Floating Point Unit on the Athlon is incredibly fast, as shown by the Quake2 Software scores, where the tests were running off pure FPU processing power. If both processors had zero cache, the Athlon would come out faster, but since the Coppermine's have on-die full-speed cache, they get a very nice performance boost in gaming benchmarks

Until AMD catches up with Intel and integrates the L2 cache on-die, we can't truly recommend the chip above Intel for top-tier gaming machines. As of right now, the Athlon 650 chip seems to be the price/performance king of the AMD processor line, boasting half-speed cache, and an amazingly low pricetag, and even yet, with the use of a second generation Slot-A motherboard with FSB tweaking, the 650 can run slightly above 700 MHz without problem. We're dying to see AMD kick it up a level with their new Thunderbird and Spitfire processors, and take back the 3D gaming crowd they've worked so hard to win over.

De Washington Post heeft een artikeltje geschreven over de teruglopende belangstelling voor het Usenet, dat totaal onbekend terrein is voor de gemiddelde newbie en bovendien bedolven wordt onder dikke lagen spam:

A few months ago, I had to explain the concept of newsgroups to a public-relations representative for MSN. I should have been stunned--back in 1996, having to explain something as basic as Usenet newsgroups would have reduced me to utter apoplexy. But by last October, it just wasn't a big deal.

Newsgroups, the text-only bulletin boards developed by three grad-student researchers in 1980, were once the food court of the online world, the global meeting place that drew people online in the first place. But then the Web came along, the venture capital arrived and the non-multimedia world of Usenet lost the spotlight.

People still talk online, but a lot of these discussions now take place elsewhere, mainly in Web-based discussion forums.

Persoonlijk vind ik message boards zoals UBB (hoe ranzig dit technisch gezien ook aan elkaar hangt) veel handiger werken dan dat geklooi met newsreaders.

SysOpt.com brengt ons een review van de PIII-800, getest op een i820 plank met Rambus DRAM. Uit vergelijkende benchmarks met een Athlon 800 (waarschijnlijk met Super Bypass disabled) blijkt dat de PIII, onder meer dankzij SSE, over het algemeen de hoogste scores haalt. Wat betreft rauwe FPU performance is de Athlon 800 nog steeds king of the hill (thanks Kiekerjan voor de link):

The Pentium III 800 is a rock solid processor. Built on the new 0.18 micron manufacturing process, it runs cool and thus is likely to improve reliability. Its raw CPU speed, as measured in our benchmarking, shows that it outperforms the Athlon 800 by a fairly significant amount under Windows98, but is virtually neck and neck under NT4. On the other hand, the Athlon 800's FPU appears to run slightly faster than the Pentium III's.

Goed nieuws van Marc: onze koeien staan nu op pos #35:

Heel Dutch power cows zingt "And another one bites the dust!"

Ja, we zijn er weer eens een team voorbij gegaan: "Michigan State University (MSU Spartans)"Zijn de ongelukkigen, omdat ze morgen nog een keer omlaag gaan, dankzij #deathmatch.

Maar ik wil jullie vast geestelijk voorbereiden op een gebeurtenis die we niet vaak hebben meegemaakt: we gaan morgen weer een plaatsje terug . Morgen dendert #Deathmatch namelijk ook ons voorbij..... (tenzij er een wonder gebeurt)

De DPC Hitparade Top 10 van 5 februari 2000

1. dennis.vanveen(74, Gisteren:34,818, Totaal:109,779)
2. sienema(2, Gisteren:4,006, Totaal:953,806)
3. Sueno(72, Gisteren:3,551, Totaal:114,630)
4. hugo.plaisier(143, Gisteren:3,445, Totaal:58,045)
5. gerkleinsman(494, Gisteren:3,380, Totaal:6,754)
6. Blauwe m&m(465, Gisteren:3,233, Totaal:7,946)
7. Eddict(31, Gisteren:3,178, Totaal:203,116)
8. Berry(95, Gisteren:3,105, Totaal:85,781)
9. Teampje KOHA(8, Gisteren:2,710, Totaal:577,035)
10. marowi&defiler(90, Gisteren:2,702, Totaal:93,166)

En de kanshebbers:

11. Chainsaw(17, Gisteren:2,626, Totaal:296,938)
12. misser(33, Gisteren:2,567, Totaal:198,129)
13. jgroot(119, Gisteren:2,469, Totaal:70,380)
14. Richard Zuidhof(28, Gisteren:2,419, Totaal:216,669)
15. Lies(64, Gisteren:2,372, Totaal:126,892)
16. Mirjou(428, Gisteren:2,344, Totaal:9,603)
17. 2fast4u(523, Gisteren:2,252, Totaal:5,894)
18. Jorik Schouten(495, Gisteren:2,244, Totaal:6,677)
19. Ferion Power!(83, Gisteren:2,188, Totaal:96,694)
20. Nasty(9, Gisteren:2,169, Totaal:537,394)

De Top 5 teams van 5 februari 2000

1.( 3) Slashdot.org (745,404)
2.( 1) #DeathMatch (705,085)
3.( ) AnandTech (585,869)
4.( 1) Russian Team (525,011)
5.( 4) Team EvangeLista (Macs Rule! :-) (397,154)
14.( 3) Dutch power cows (208,743)
58.( 9) The #koffie Team (50,359)
95.( 19) HIT2000 Linux, Hack & Crack event of 1999, the Netherlands (33,217)

Teams om ons heen(total stats):
31.( ) QUALCOMM Incorporated (Tot:37,679,155)
32.( ) SwissTeam (Tot:36,764,021, Gis:85,982)
33.( ) BOFH@Chalmers (Tot:35,894,772, Gis:62,913)
34.( ) Winbiff Users Group (Tot:34,809,545, Gis:76,176)
35.( 1) Dutch power cows (Tot:34,190,188, Gis:208,743)
36.( 1) Michigan State University (MSU Spartans) (Tot:34,168,432, Gis:100,762)
37.( ) #DeathMatch (Tot:34,065,890, Gis:705,085)
38.( ) The #koffie Team (Tot:32,851,082, Gis:50,359)
39.( ) Japan Celeron Users Group (Tot:30,691,753, Gis:61,502)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Wanneer halen we ze in:
QUALCOMM Incorporated: 17 dagen
SwissTeam: 21 dagen
BOFH@Chalmers: 12 dagen
Winbiff Users Group: 5 dagen

Dutch power cows is vandaag 14e en heeft een kans van een op 158 om de sleutel te vinden!

Oentje (what's in a name?) schrijft: "Ik ben sinds enige dagen de gelukkige bezitter van een Montac Arctic cooler, een indrukwekkend apparaat van bijna tien cm in diameter en een onwaarschijnlijk groot koelvermogen maar..."

Eindelijk was het dan zover: een Athlon 600 0.18micron, een Ninja micro Freespeed Pro en dan kwam nog net voor het weekend de gloednieuwe Arctic cooler binnen. Kortom alle ingrediënten voor een leuk weekend overklokken.

De eerste tegenvaller was de geopende Athlon 600 die ondanks zijn 0.18 micron toch gewoon een 600 core bleek te hebben. Ondanks de verhalen blijkt AMD wel degelijk verschillende cores te labellen. Wel zat er 3.3ns cache chips op dus ten opzichte van de 4 ns van mijn vorige K7-500 al een hele verbetering ( die had trouwens ook gewoon een 500 core).

Wat wel opviel was de kleine core van de Athlon, ca 40% kleiner dan de .25 micron versies. En daar ging het dan ook mis. Toen ik de zware Arctic cooler plaatste en de bouten met de hand aandraaide hoorde ik een gemeen "krakje" dat was het geluid van een .18micron Athlon die een deel van de hoek verloor.

Met klamme handen bouwde ik de zaak in de computer en drukte op de knop. Helaas "om zeep".

Moraal: waneer je een Arctic cooler gaat plaatsen op de kleine core van een .18 micron Athlon doe dit dan heeeeel voorzichtig. De vraag is zelfs of het apparaat niet te zwaar is uitgevoerd voor zo'n klein chipje. Jammer dit was een heel duur weekend.

Interesse in een Arctic, Freespeed en dooie Athlon? Ieder bod is welkom... hoewel zou ik toch niet even wachten en straks, wie weet. Oentje ( inderdaad geen toeval die naam)

Kee, allemaal ff een minuutje processorstilte (koetje uit) ter nagedachtenis van deze gesneuvelde Athlon .

Volgens bronnen van ZDNet zal de mobile Pentium III in 2001 opgevolgd worden door 'Northwood', de mobiele variant van Willamette. Northwood zal als eerste Intel processor gebruik maken van een 0,13micron produktieprocédé. Tot voor kort werd aangenomen dat Intel pas in 2002 het bruggetje naar 0,13micron zou leggen:

Intel Corp. sources say the chip maker is working to replace its top-of-the-line notebook processor, the mobile Pentium III, with a new chip, code-named Northwood, in 2001.

Northwood, based on the same next-generation 32-bit architecture as Intel's forthcoming Willamette desktop chip, will mark the beginning of Intel's transition to a 0.13-micron process. Changing process technologies allows a chip maker to increase performance while reducing both cost and power consumption.

Northwood zal het op moeten nemen tegen de mobile versie van de Athlon Mustang, die naar verwachting ruim voor de release van Northwood op de markt zal komen.

JL schrijft: "AMD is attenter dan de gemiddelde nederlandse vrouw en laat ons tweakers met valentijn niet in de kou staan. Zij schenkt ons een athlon 850 ":

Carrera, Evesham Micros, Mesh and Time Computers will be among PC builders launching machines with AMD's 850MHz Athlon chip. Carrera is adding an 850MHz machine to its existing Octan range of Athlon machines from the chip's launch date of 14 February. Evesham Micros will be offering four 850MHz Athlon PCs from March -- the TNT 2, TNT 2 Plus, GeForce and GeForce DDR.

"AMD can hold its own and now beat Intel in the megahertz race," said Luke Ireland, operations director at Evesham.

"The ever increasing demands of gamers means that AMD is now considered the vendor of choice in this highly competitive market."

AMD gaat dus weer een gaatje slaan met Intel (en kan hoogstwaarschijnlijk wél leveren). Meer daarover lees je in Het Register.

Tom heeft een follow-up gepost op zijn VIA Apollo KX133 review van gisteren. In deze review bleek dat de Athlon in de SPECviewperf benchmarks onder NT veel lagere resultaten behaalde dan de Pentium III, wat vreemd was aangezien de Athlon met dezelfde benchmarks sneller was onder Windows 98. nVidia stuurde Tom een nieuwe NT drivertje, die wonderen bleek te verrichten. De Athlon+KX133 is met de nieuwe wonderdriver in alle SPECviewperf benchmarks sneller dan de PIII+i840, in sommige benchmarks stegen de prestaties zelfs met meer dan 100%:

NVIDIA told me in the email containing the new drivers for KX133 that this new driver enables AGP4x on KX133. It cannot really be only that, because the SPECviewperf-scores under Windows98 with only AGP1x and only 100 MHz memory-bus are still higher than the initial NT-scores of Athlon with NVIDIA's rev. 3.68 drivers. This is a strong hint that more than only AGP4x has been enabled in the new driver. Whatever other features have been enabled in GeForce's new KX133-driver, they are still not enabled when using the AMD750-platform. There are only a few possible reasons I could think of. Either AMD750 runs so bad under NT that NVIDIA had to disable all those features (I consider this as rather unlikely), or NVIDIA didn't consider Athlon as a CPU that would be used in an OpenGL-platform, thus they didn't bother optimizing the NT-driver for AMD750 (in this case I blame AMD's product marketing for sleeping), or AMD didn't bother supporting NVIDIA properly for their development of drivers (something that I've heard from other companies before). I already asked NVIDIA to give me some kind of statement about that.