Palm Computer heeft vandaag de Palm IIIc met 8-bit kleurendisplay geïntroduceerd. Het apparaat wordt geleverd met PalmOS 3.5 en 8Meg geheugen en is verpakt in een zwart kastje (thanks Acolyte57 voor de tip):

The device, priced at $449 and featuring 8MB of memory, purports to solve some of the problems color displays cause, problems that have plagued the Microsoft-based devices. Windows CE devices have supported color displays for almost a year, but users complained about the bulky size of the devices, the drain on battery life and the weight color displays added.

The Palm IIIc battery is capable of up to two weeks of battery life and can be recharged in a cradle, much like a cell phone, the company claims. However, those claims are somewhat unreliable, because battery life, especially on color devices, is heavily dependent on usage patterns, analysts say.

For example, if a Palm device is used only for address book and calendar functions, the battery will last much longer than if the device is used for the multimedia applications that the color display enables. Palm did not elaborate on the methodology of its battery life tests.

Naast de Palm IIIc zagen ook de Palm IIIxe en een aantal nieuwe Plam accesoires het levenslicht. Meer daarover lees je in dit artikel van News.com.

Fred Perry schrijft dat Alex van Kaam een nieuwe versie van Motherboard Monitor in elkaar geknutseld heeft. Hieronder de info over versie 4.14:

• Added support for the FIC SD-11 users who lost monitoring capabalities when updating their bios, please read the FICSD11.TXT file which will be installed together with MBM 4.14.
• Added support for the GL523SM, all possible 9 chips (18 temperature sensors)
• Added support for the LM83, all possible 9 chips (36 temperature sensors)

I realise that I will probably have to start writting a new visual interface since having a maximum of 3 sensors is turning out not to be enough, when I will find time for this I don't yet know.

Je kunt het proggie hier downloaden. Meer info vind je op de Motherboard Monitor website.

Update: versie 4.14 bestaat niet meer vanwege een fout m.b..t. de Asus K7M. De link verwijst nu naar versie 4.15 (zie dit nieuwsbericht)

Bij AnandTech Webnews is de press release te vinden van de VIA / Cyrix III processor, die voorheen "Joshua" als codenaam droeg. De .18 micron Cyrix III processor moet met 256kB L2 cache, 133MHz FSB ondersteuning en Advanced 3DNow! Instructies het low-end Socket-370 segment weer nieuw leven inblazen. De eerste twee modellen, de PR500 en PR533 komen binnenkort op de markt voor respectievelijk $84 en $99 dollar (per duizend).

VIA Technologies, Inc. Introduces the VIA Cyrix* III Processor for the Value PC Market Breaks Existing Value PC Performance Limitations with 133MHz FSB Support, 256K L2 Cache and Advanced 3DNow! Instructions Fremont, California, January 22, 2000 - VIA Technologies, Inc today announced the launch of the VIA Cyrix* III processor, the world's first Socket 370 processor to deliver premium features and performance for the Value PC segment. Launching at speeds of up to PR533, the VIA Cyrix* III processor is the only solution to deliver enhanced performance features for the Value PC segment, including 133MHz Front Side Bus, 256K L2 Cache and 3DNow!TM technology. Fully compatible with a complete range of Socket 370 motherboards, the VIA Cyrix* III processor provides a compelling price/performance solution for OEMs, System Integrators, and Value PC users. "With the launch of the VIA Cyrix*III processor, VIA is showing the industry we are committed to providing a choice of processors for Value PCs," stated Wen Chi Chen, President and CEO of VIA Technologies, Inc. "By leveraging our existing IC design experience and close industry relationships, we are enabling our customers to build powerful and feature-rich PC systems that are affordable for everyone." High Performance Features
The VIA Cyrix* III processor is the first socket 370 product to unite 133MHz Front Side Bus and 3DNow! technology. Developed using a .18u process, it also has a 256k L2 cache and a redesigned Cayenne core to boost overall performance. "With its combination of premium features and the latest sub micron technology, the VIA Cyrix* III processor is the perfect basis for a system that offers high-performance business and personal computing, a rich graphical experience, and cost-efficient access to the Internet," said Steve McMahan, Director of Engineering for VIA Cyrix Processors. The VIA Cyrix* III processor's advanced 3DNow! instruction set insures a photo realistic 3D experience that turns Value PCs into cost-efficient, yet high performance gaming systems. Through its support for 66, 100 and 133MHz Front Side Bus speeds, the VIA Cyrix*III processor breaks the Value PC out of the limitations of a low FSB system, boosting bandwidth to a level complementary to the most advanced PC133 memory and AGP4X graphics standards. With a 64k L1 and 256K L2 cache, the VIA Cyrix*III processor more than doubles the existing level of cache available in Value PC systems, resulting in faster system throughput and better overall system performance. Pricing and Availability The VIA Cyrix* III processor is subcontracted to National Semiconductor and is in production using a .18 micron, 6-layer process. The VIA Cyrix*III processor is priced at $84 for PR500 and $99 for PR533 in 1K quantities. Contact your local VIA Technologies sales office for availability. About VIA Technologies, Inc
Founded in 1987, VIA Technologies, Inc., designs, engineers, and manufactures cost-effective, highly integrated, high functionality x86 processors, system logic chipsets and associated peripherals for manufacturers of desktop and portable PC systems.

AVL schrijft dat Pioneer vandaag haar DVD-115 16 speed DVD speler heeft aangekondigd. Deze IDE drive zal volgende maand leverbaar worden. Hieronder vast een gedeelte uit de press release:

LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 2000--Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., a leading manufacturer of DVD technology- based products, Tuesday announced the industry's first 16X (max.) DVD-ROM drive, ``Sweet 16.''

As with its introduction of the 10X drive, Pioneer is again the first to bring the fastest DVD-ROM drive to market.

Offering speeds that are 16 times faster than first generation DVD-ROM technology, the 16X DVD-ROM/40X CD-ROM is compatible with single and dual layer DVD-ROM and DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-DA, Video CD and Photo CD media, preserving compatibility with conventional CD formats.

[...] Pioneer's DVD-ROM drive features a 512 KB buffer memory, audio output, a front panel headphone jack and volume control knob. Compatible with the Windows 9X Plug and Play standard, the drive is easy to install and use. The 5.25-inch half-height drive measures 148x207.5x42.3mm (WxDxH) and weighs 1.0 kg.

The current version (DVD-115) features a tray-load and will be available in March 2000 through OEM and distribution channels. The slot-load (DVD-105S) version will be available in April 2000.

AVL schrijft: "The Register bericht dat in de MS X-box (Microsoft's mysterieuze console) een AMD Athlon zal gaan zitten. Moet een mooi financieel steuntje zijn voor AMD. Verder wordt gezegd dat het grafische gedeelte door Gigapixel wordt afgehandeld":

An AMD Athlon CPU, a hard drive, DVD ROM and a modified version of Windows will form the other major components of the X-Box, according to sources cited by the IT Network.

The Gigapixel graphics chipset in combination with the Athlon CPU will, apparently, provide the X-Box with enough power to exceed the performance of the Sony PlayStation 2 by six to eight times. Moreover, the Microsoft console will be less expensive and likely to be compatible with existing Windows applications.

Bill Gates is scheduled to introduce X-Box at the upcoming Games Developer Conference in the US next month. The X-Box is meant to be a direct competitor to Sony's PlayStation 2 which is scheduled to be launched in Japan on 4 March.

Fiets richting The Register voor het complete bericht.

Thomas Pabst van Tom's Hardware Guide heeft een blurb online gepiekerd waarin hij duidelijk zijn mening naar voren brengt over het feit dat internetjournalisten dit jaar niet welkom zijn op de CeBIT beurs, die donderdag van start gaat in Hannover. Hij verkondigt dan ook iedereen om vooral NIET naar de CeBIT beurs te gaan!

Online journalists are obviously supposed to pay for their passage through the barriers. We are talking of no less than 30 bucks/day. Of course nobody would do that. Exhibitors already signalized that they would supply every online journalist they know with exhibitor badges. This is a nice gesture, but it still doesn't solve the issue. Press should be able to present itself as press. I don't want to run around the CeBIT grounds with a badge that states I am an exhibitor with some strange name. I expect to carry a badge that shows that I am a member of the press, my name and affiliation. The exhibitor badge is also not very helpful in case I want to use the press facilities. Nobody would let me inside. The same is possible for press conferences. The only proper response of the online media to Mr. Roloff's ridiculous actions is the following. DON'T GO TO CEBIT2000!!! This is what I am going to do and I advise all my colleagues to do the same. The exhibitors will soon enough scream 'murder' when there are no online reports about their products. CeBIT will finally suffer and, who knows, maybe CeBIT will drop in significance that much, that none of us will have to go to this cold and uninviting town in northern Germany next year anymore.

Lees hier Tom's hele verhaal. Thanks Cyrax voor de link.

CTNews brengt ons een review van de IBM 22GXP, een 7200rpm harddisk met een flinke buffer van 2MB en een opslagcapaciteit van dik 13 gieg. Hieronder wat meer info over de schijf:

Does the UDMA/66 interface make a difference or not? After looking at the benchmarks we can tell that it does transfer data at up to twice the speeds of UDMA/33 drives.

Further proof of the UDMA/66's speed is in 'Read Bust Speed.' This IBM drive almost hits the theoretical limits of UDMA/33 and UDMA/66. Even though the UDMA/66 mode has a slightly higher CPU utilization, it's safe to say that with most of today's faster CPU's we don't see any performance hit from the Hard Drive's end of it. A difference of an extra 5 - 6% in CPU utilization is smacked down by a doubling in the transfer rates between devices. And having a 2MB bugger doesn't hurt at all.

After testing the little brother, the 14.4 Gig IBM drive that was '98 champ, we see smaller drops in read accessing. The downward spikes show this on the HD Tach 2.60 scales. Each time a drive has a vast downward spike it is nearing its maximum capacity to transfer data without running out of buffer zone area or it is reaching it's bandwidth limits. With UDMA/66 you don't see this happening as often or as deeply as you do in UDMA/33 drives.

Hilko schrijft: "Eindelijk de officiële press-release dat de K6-2 550 er is. Vroeger moesten we na dit soort press releases nog zo'n volle maand (of langer) wachten totdat we ze ook echt konden kopen, maar dat is nu niet het geval. Volgens een vriend bij een groothandel hier in NL kunnen we vanaf de 28ste de cpu's ook in ons kikkerlandje verwachten. Maar aan de andere kant, wie zit er nu eigenlijk nog op een K6-2 te wachten?":

SUNNYVALE, CA--FEBRUARY 22, 2000--AMD today announced the 550MHz AMD-K6® -2 processor with 3DNow!™ technology. The AMD-K6-2 processor family is fully compatible with the recently announced Microsoft™ Windows 2000 operating system, as well as Windows 98 and other PC operating systems.

"The AMD-K6-2 processor family offers a cost-effective and excellent solution for mainstream applications in the small business and consumer markets," said Dana Krelle, vice president of marketing for the Computation Products Group at AMD. "Providing a good balance of price, performance and features, the AMD-K6-2 processor family allows our customers to offer some of the most competitive PC products on the market."

"We're confident Windows 2000 will be the operating system of choice for small businesses as well as the largest enterprises," said Brian Valentine, senior vice president, Windows Division, Microsoft Corporation. "We're therefore excited to see that entry-level platforms such as the 550MHz AMD-K6-2 processor offer excellent performance and a great end-user experience on Windows 2000."

In navolging van Overclocker's Australia, Gamers Depot en BX Boards heeft ook Wonderboy Anand zijn review van de Epox 7KXA KX133 Athlon mobo online gemikt. Hoewel er weinig aan te merken viel aan de performance en features bleek het bord nog niet echt aan Anand's stabiliteits eisen te voldoen. Waarschijnlijk is dit gewoon te wijten aan de de vroege versie die getest werd; revisie 0.3.

As the first KX133 board to hit the market, the EPoX will definitely sell quite a few 7KXAs based on that fact alone. The 7KXA will probably end up being the definition of what an average KX133 motherboard will be defined as in the upcoming months. Its overclocking features put the 7KXA up on the levels of the K7M and MSI's newly released K7Pro in terms of overclocking desire, but the board still lacks the added features that would truly separate it from the rest of the pack. Overall, the 7KXA is a perfectly fine KX133 based solution. It will be one of the first available (if not the first available) in most areas and it combines EPoX's usual quality and reliability with the feature set provided by VIA's KX133 chipset. For those of you that need a KX133 board now, the 7KXA is obviously a better solution than nothing. But for those of you that can wait, DDR Athlon chipsets are reportedly just a few months away and if you can't wait that long, it'll be about a month until you start seeing more KX133 based boards appear from companies like ASUS and Tyan among others.

Lees hier de complete review.

Met dank aan SpiriT die de link bezorgde kunnen bezitters van een Sony CRX100E CD-brander nu eindelijk een firmware update downloaden. Deze update moet het eindelijk mogelijk maken ook 80 min/700 MB CD's te branden. Dit werkt dus ook voor HP8100 branders die op hetzelfde binnenwerk gebaseerd zijn!
De update kun je hier downloaden.

19/02/2000 : CD-R : Added the very asked Sony CRX-100E firmware 1.0n. ( this firmware is supposed to add support for 700mb discs)

3DHardware heeft een artikeltje geschreven over de ontwikkelingen ten aanzien van geheugen op basis van polymeren in plaats van op basis van silicium. Een Noors bedrijf (Opticom) schijnt al jaren bezig te zijn met deze producten en boekt de laatste tijd goede resultaten. Het is een behoorlijk taai stukje tekst, maar zeker het lezen waard.
(Thanx VooDoo voor de link)

So what are the advantages of polymer-based memory? Why should we be dealing with it, when we already have working silicon-based memory? Well, the reasons can be summarized in the following five features of polymer-based memory:

High storage capacity
Fast data access
Fast data transfer speed
Low power consumption
Low price [break]Het zou de doorbraak kunnen zijn op het gebied van mobiele opslag voor digitale camera's en MP3 spelers:[/break] To give a picture of what speeds we will be looking at for these polymer-based memories, Opticom have had a project going on since 1998 - a PCMCIA card with a capacity of 1Gigabyte, and a transfer speed of 0,5 Gigabits per second! With an access time of 62ns, comparable to 60ns of the EDO RAM we were all using a couple of years ago, it's almost as fast as RAM, so it should be a killer app for digital video cameras, that could record up to an hour and a half of MPEG video on this solid state card, staying completely shock proof, because the lack of moving parts.

Lees hier het hele verhaal.

Milenko bezorgde ons een link naar deze site met flink wat foto's van een BP6-waterkoeling project. Met behulp van dit systeem is het gelukt twee Celeron 400-processoren op 650 MHz te krijgen. En, het moet gezegd, het ziet er allemaal bijzonder professioneel en netjes uit. Een verslag van de werkwijze ontbreekt helaas, maar misschien komt dat nog.

Een dag na het blije nieuws over de Televaag 'advertorial' en de hack bij Bevelander meldt Planet Multimedia vandaag dat er bij De Instichting een klacht is ingediend tegen het bedrijf van de Nederlandse 'Dagobert Duck'. Bevelander blijkt domeinen te registreren met namen van concurrenten:

De registratie van Bevelander van de domeinnamen van concurrenten, maar dan zonder de punt tussen www en de naam kwam hem op een officiele klacht te staan, zo blijkt nu. Het gaat met name om wwwvuurwerk.nl, wwwcistron.nl en wwwetrade.nl. Die namen linkten naar de eigen site van Bevelander, zoals eerder al was te lezen bij Planet Multimedia.

Het gaat om bij het Benelux Merkenbureau geregistreerde domeinnamen. Bevelander deed dat met de Domain For Web BV, maar spoedig bleek dat deze ook in handen is van hem.

Het bestuur van de Stichting Domeinregistratie kan tot een royement overgaan indien een lid zich misdraagt.

Thanks pdxnet96 voor de tip.

Volgens Taiwenese bronnen van The Register heeft AMD in april de release van de AMD 933 op de planning staan. De proc wordt tegelijkertijd geïntroduceerd met de voor ons nog onbekende VIA KX153 chipset die ondersteuning heeft voor een 266MHz datarate frontside bus (thanks Henk Jan Smit voor de tip):

Yesterday we revealed that AMD will cut and slash its Athlon pricing next Monday, the 28th of February. But by April there will be a 933MHz Athlon -- which implies a 266/133MHz DDR/SDRAM bus.

In April, the 600MHz Athlon will reach the end of its life. The 650MHz will cost $192, the 700MHz $235, the 750MHz $325, the 800MHz $495, the 850MHz $725 and the new 933MHz Athlon $860. These prices do not include heatsink and fans.

[...] Further good news for AMD and its Athlon Powers suggest that FIC's (First International Corporation's) SK11 boards are likely to hit OEMs real soon now, for around $85. These will use the Via KX153 chipset supporting 133MHz synchronous memory 4xAGP and other features.

Volgens een recente VIA roadmap van iXBT Labs komt de eerste VIA chipset met 266MHz FSB pas in het vierde kwartaal van dit jaar.

Hardware Central heeft een artikeltje neer gemikt over Rambus DRAM en Double Data Rate SDRAM, de twee technologiën die kampfen om de positie van toekomstige geheugenstandaard. DDR SDRAM kenmerkt zich enerzijds door een hogere bandbreedte en een relatief lage prijs. Rambus anderzijds heeft een lagere bandbreedte en een hogere efficiency, maar heeft als nadelen de hogere latency en de veel hogere prijs:

In terms of production, DDR SDRAM seems to be the preferred option among memory manufacturers such as Hitachi, Hyundai, Samsung, Siemens and others. DDR yields have been acceptable thus far, and are already in production at moderate levels primarily due to demand for GeForce DDR-based graphics cards. Furthermore, DDR SDRAM requires very little retooling from standard SDRAM, so getting production levels up to an acceptable level would not incur high initial costs.

The only immediate drawback to DDR SDRAM is its poor memory bus efficiency. Early estimates dictate that DDR SDRAM’s bus effectiveness would be less than 65%, compared to 75% for standard SDRAM and 85% for RDRAM, which seriously cuts into the available bandwidth. Despite this, PC266/2100 DDR SDRAM is capable of the same effective bandwidth as PC800 RDRAM.

GamePC heeft een review van de Hitachi Superscan 814, een dik 21" beeldkanon met een maximale resolutie van 2048 * 1536px bij 75Hz, op het net gezet. GamePC is erg positief over de beeldkwaliteit van de monitor:

Well after using the 814 for a couple of days, it certainly changed my whole outlook on Hitachi in the monitor business. Using a GeForce DDR board, starting from 640 x 480 and ending up at 2048 x 1536 was a very pleasant experience. At each change in resolution, the image quality never really got terrible enough to where that resolution was not usable. When looked at up closely the only thing noticeable with the monitor were very thin wavy lines running from one side of the screen to the other side. These lines were not the shadows from damper wires we were used to seeing on aperture grille monitors because there were literally hundreds of them starting from the bottom of the monitor and ending to the top.

After much debate on the best resolution to use with this monitor, 1600 x 1200 @ 85 Hz seems to be the 814’s sweet spot. Even though 2048 x 1536 @ 75 Hz was crisp and usable, all of use here needed to squint to read text off the screen. Other then that, all visual usable areas on the monitor were flawless. At high resolutions corners on monitors normally show a slight blurring effect, but in the 814’s case it was very sharp, even at 2048 x 1536. All in all Hitachi is on the right track to being number one. Their SuperScan monitor lines proved that flatter isn’t better and that aperture grille aren’t all that. If Hitachi addresses the streaming line problem that runs across the screen and fixed up the on screen control we may be seeing a lot more monitor manufactures using Hitachi’s tube.

De sterke daling van de DRAM prijzen in de afgelopen weken wordt door analisten deels toegeschreven aan de leveringsproblemen bij Intel. Door de beperkte supplies van Pentium III processors is de vraag naar geheugens onverwacht afgenomen, waardoor geheugenfabrikanten hun chips niet aan de straatstenen kwijtraken. Verder blijken onverwacht hoge yields bij diverse DRAM fabrikanten een bijdrage te leveren aan de huidige overproduktie:

Satoru Oyama, senior semiconductor analyst for ABN Amro Securities Japan Ltd. (Tokyo), blamed falling DRAM prices on seasonal factors and on Intel's problems keeping up with demand for microprocessors. He said the price bottom might not be reached until April or May.

[...] The Pentium III bottleneck was only one of several factors blamed for the recent DRAM dive. Unexpectedly high yields at several large suppliers have increased supplies of the chips, said Bob Eminian, vice president of marketing for Samsung Semiconductor (San Jose). Suppliers have been slow to shift capacity into alternate memory types, including Rambus, double-data-rate and PC-133, creating an oversupply of PC-100 parts, Dataquest's Handy said.

But DRAM prices could get a lift in the second half of the year due to seasonal high demand and the introduction of Windows 2000, which should boost the minimum system memory requirement to 128 Mbytes, said Oyama of ABN Amro.

Check voor meer info dit artikel van EETimes.

Seagate heeft een nieuwe tape drive aangekondigd die gebruik maakt van het Ultrium tape format. Het produkt draagt de naam Viper 200 en zal op de CeBIT in Hannover gedemonstreerd worden. De Viper 200 kan tot 200GB aan data backuppen en trekt via de SCSI interface bij 100% compressie 1,9GB per minuut:

Seagate Technology, Inc. (NYSE: SEG - news), a leading manufacturer of computer tape drive products, today announced the introduction of the Viper 200, a new tape drive based on the Ultrium format of Linear Tape-Open technology, an open-format specification developed by Seagate, Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. enabling multiple suppliers to offer multiple products. The Viper 200 provides the midrange tape market space with a host of best-in-class features focused on high performance, reliability and data availability. Seagate will also display the Viper 200 at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, February 24 through March 1, 2000, at Booth No. B57 in Hall 12.

Seagate will support system OEMs, automation manufacturers and the distribution channel with a complete family of Viper 200 backup solutions. The Viper 200 will be available in two SCSI configurations (LVD and HVD), with native Fibre Channel interfaces planned for release later in the year. Internal, external, autoloader and automation-ready configurations of the Viper 200 will meet the needs of the midrange server marketplace. The Viper 200 will record up to 200 Gbytes of compressed data on a single Ultrium format cartridge at speeds up to 1.9 Gbytes per minute (assuming 2:1 data compression).

[...] Reliability is the cornerstone of the Viper 200. Seagate's patented dynamic powerdown systems protect the media and mechanism in the event of a power loss during normal operation. When the Viper 200 senses a loss of power, it slows down each tape reel simultaneously and maintains the proper tension to prevent the media from unspooling and being destroyed. Additional features include a shock-dampened and isolated chassis, media enhancements for tape picking and movement, and a unique modular design to enhance both media and mechanism reliability. These features enable the Viper 200 to withstand the rigors of near 100% duty-cycle operations that are becoming more common in today's most intense computing environments. Data integrity is key when recording at high-density levels. Seagate has designed the Viper with specific technologies that protect the integrity of the written data including patented head positioning technology, managed airflow dynamics, intelligent media analysis, advanced error correction codes and a timing-based servo system with redundant elements. Seagate's FastSense(TM) technology optimizes backup time by allowing the Viper 200 to modulate tape speed to closely match the data rates from the host computer system. This ensures that the tape drive will stream continuously, reducing overall backup time and decreasing wear on critical components.

In addition to the Viper 200, Seagate will also offer Ultrium-format 200-Gbyte data cartridges. Seagate's Ultrium-format media will be certified under stringent testing to provide the highest level of data integrity and interchangeability for the Viper 200 as well as other Ultrium-format drives. The cartridge contains an imbedded memory chip that stores the cartridge index, allowing fast access to data. The memory chip is accessed by a wireless RF signal, allowing for easy integration in automated solutions.

Overclockers' Workbench heeft een korte preview rond de Soltek SL-77KV Apollo KX133 plank in mekaar gedraaid. Dit bord heeft 5xPCI, 1xISA, 1xAMR, 3xDIMM en 66~133MHz FSB tweaking (in stappen van 1MHz?) via het BIOS of via conventionele jumpers:

Although Soltek is pretty low profile in Singapore, you might have heard of it's SL-02D, the ultimate upgrade solution for legacy Slot-1 mainboards the.adapter card SL-02D Power C-Tune. The built-in PWM circuit on SL-02D enables the processor to acquire the Vcore needed directly from the system power supply, rather than from the mainboard. This unique design makes it possible to use FC-PGA Coppermine on legacy Slot-1 mainboards that do not support 1.6 Volts Vcore.

The KX133 based mainboard SL77KV includes frequency tweaking from 66 ~ 133Mhz selectable from a combination of jumpers and within CMOS. It also has voltage tweaking from 1.6v to +0.4v (2.0v). It looks like a board of great potential. We will be revealing more in our review coming soon exclusively from Overclockers' Workbench.

LopeZ brengt nog meer Abit nieuws: "Abit komt met een nieuw moederbord, gebaseerd op de VIA Apollo Pro 133A. Vooral die A moet het verschil gaan maken in prestaties, die bij de geflopte VA6 tegen vielen".

Volgens Abit NL komt de VT6 over een maand op de markt. In tegenstelling tot de Apollo 133 heeft de 133A wél AGP 4x support. Uit reviews van de Abit VA6 bleek dat dit bord vanwege de 1/2 AGP divider en de flexibele 133MHz FSB setting een interessant alternatief is voor de 440BX. Wel kwam naar voren dat vooral de geheugen performance zwaar achter blijft, hopelijk is dit ook verbeterd bij de VT6.

Abit is lekker op dreef voor de komende CeBIT en heeft naast de Siluro videokaaten, de CH6 i820 plank, de eigen Linux distributie en de Postman debugger ook nog eens een ATA100 PCI controller op de planning staan. Nu hebben we alleen nog een schijfje nodig dat de ATA100 snelheid zinvol kan benutten:

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. February 21, 2000—The Hot Rod 100--Ultra DMA IDE Controller Card is the latest from ABIT that gives 2 extra channels of UDMA/ATA/ 33, 66 or 100 for your system. The controller is the HPT370 Ultra DMA IDE Controller from High Point and it uses the local PCI bus.

The Hot Rod 100 gives your system Ultra DMA 66 or 100 MB/sec data transfer rate with future support for Ultra ATA specifications. The cards provides two independent ATA channels at 256 Byte FIFO per ATA channel with concurrent PIO and bus master access and compliant with Plug & Play with up to 4 IDE devices supported.

The Hot Rod 100 card can be used with any FX, LX, EX, ZX, BX and Intel 820 chipset board. With the help of the ABIT Hot Rod 100, your mainboard can support this specification at its intended 66 or 100 Mbytes/sec of data throughput. The result is maximum disc performance using the current PCI local bus environment.

Ultra ATA/66 and ATA/100 hard drives are 100 percent backward compatible with both Ultra ATA/33 and DMA and with existing ATA (IDE) hard drives, CD-ROM drives, and host systems and the Ultra ATA/66 protocol and commands are designed to be compatible with existing ATA (IDE) devices and systems. And with ABIT’s Hot Rod 100, you get automatic recognition and compatibility for any combination of UDMA/100, UDMA/66, UDMA/33, EIDE, or ATAPI devices.

AVL leidt ons de weg naar de Epox 7KXA review van Overclockers Australia. Onze australische vrienden zijn positief over de overklokbaarheid van de 7KXA, die naast de standaard 100MHz busspeed setting ook opties heeft voor 110 en 115MHz. Een 15% toename in FSB snelheid bleek de stabiliteit van de plank niet nadelig te beïnvloeden:

I could get an Athlon 650 to run stably at 110MHz but it would crash at 115MHz. I thought this might be a limit of the core, though, so I got Jim's Athlon 500 (which has been proven via a gold-finger device to be stable at 650) and cranked it up to 115MHz. It ran the Unreal Flyby with SETI in the background for a good couple of hours at this FSB, for a core speed of 575MHz. Not an exhaustive test, but it shows the chipset to be much more flexible in this regard than the AMD 750.

However, I can already hear the BX-board owners scoffing at a meagre 15% FSB increase. Hopefully this is a good omen for the chipset and other implementations will allow this to be pushed further. Since the K7M review a plethora of gold-finger devices have burst onto the market so you can put your soldering iron away - multiplier-based Athlon overclocking is now a no-brainer - but stable FSB adjustment gives you much finer control (once you've set your multiplier to something higher), a few extra MHz and, of course, the advantages of the overclocked memory, PCI, AGP etc.

Insane bracht een link naar dit artikel van The Register, met meer details over de prijsverlagingen waarmee Intel ons volgende week zal zegenen. Vooral de PIII-700 gaat een leuke smak maken, al is de daling van 26% niets vergeleken met het prijsfestijn dat AMD voor ons in petto heeft:

Naast deze dalingen van 27 februari heeft The Register ook al cijfers voor de volgende geplande prijsverlagingen van 23 april en 28 mei:

On the 23rd of April, the 866/133 drops by four per cent to $744, the 850/100 to $733. The 800/133 will drop by 13 points to $562, while the 750/100 will fall by 14 points to $455. The biggest cut is on the 733/133, which falls by 26 per cent to $337. The 700/100 falls by 24 per cent to $316, the 666/133 to $251, and the 650/100 to $241. The 600/133/100 each fall to $193 -- a 20 per cent reduction. The 550 processors with both 256K and 512K cache stay unchanged at $193.

On the 28th of May next, Intel will introduce its 933/133 Coppermine Pentium III, which will displace the 866/133 and be initially priced at $744. The 866/133 will drop by 24 per cent to $562, the 850/100 to $551, and the 800/133/100 to $385 -- a large drop of 31 per cent. The 750/100 will fall to $337 (26%), the 733/133 to $246 (27%), and the 700/100 to $241 (24%). The 666/133 will fall to $193 (23%) and the 650/100 will also be priced at $193 (20%), meaning the other members of the Pentium III family drop off the roadmap.

PanMan schrijft: "De eerste gebruikers van Mxstream zijn aangesloten en hebben een korte samenvatting van hun ervaringen online gezet. Het blijkt allemaal nogal een beetje tegen te vallen, zeker als je bij Snelnet hebt gezien hoe ADSL *kan* werken":

De downloadsnelheid van Mxstream ligt iets boven de 50 KByte/s. De uplink is vergelijkbaar met ISDN, dus zo'n 7 KByte/s. De pingtijden naar de default gateway (195.190.229.36) liggen boven de 60 ms. Tel daarbij op de normale latency naar bijvoorbeeld een Quake server en je zit op 80 a 90 ms. (...)

[...] Conclusie: de 3 Zaanse Snelnetters die ik ken zijn teleurgesteld over Mxstream en willen er eigenlijk weer van af. De latencytijden zijn zwaar beneden de maat. Voor gamers is dit funest. Chello lijkt in onze regio de betere papieren te hebben, alhoewel we daar ook weer negatieve verhalen over horen (facturering, helpdesk, mailserver). Wanneer je kabelboer geen toegang biedt tot Internet, of wanneer deze toegang niet best is (Casema wordt in dit verband vaak genoemd), kan Mxstream een alternatief zijn.

Een dergelijk boute upstream snelheid maakt het draaien van FTP en Webservers tamelijk zinloos. Cistron lijkt vooralsnog meer te kunnen bieden (een zekere tweaker R. haalt daar met één simultane FTP connectie al honderden kilobytes/sec).

Ace's Hardware wist een artikeltje over een Elbrus E2K presentatie op de HPC Asia 2000 conferentie van het net te vissen. De Elbrus E2K is een in Rusland ontwikkelde processor waar zo mogelijk nog meer wazigheid omheen hangt als de Transmeta Crusoe destijds voor de officiële aankondiging. Het artikel claimt dat de E2K op een kloksnelheid van 1,2GHz een performance haalt van 135 SPECint95 en 350 SPECfp95. Ter vergelijking: een Alpha 21264 op 700MHz haalt 39,1 / 68,1 en een Athlon 700 trekt 31,7 / 24,0:

The E2k microprocessor is a new chip design which implements the postRISC architecture developed by the team and a corresponding optimizing compiler. This chip ensures the highest possible logical speed. This project is well tuned to high frequency implementation. The clock frequency on 0.18u is equal to 1200 Mhz. It has 135 SPECint95 and 350 SPECfp95 for 256K in chip L2 cache and on 0.1u it has 2.2 Ghz clock frequency and 410 SPECint95 and 960 SPECfp95. It is substantially faster for the same technology than Intel's Itanium. The E2k architecture is scalable and fits very well to future feature sizes (0.13, 0.10, etc.) due to different types of parallelism on chip (ILP, SIMD, synchronous multithreading).

Using binary compilation technique developed by the team it is fully compatible with x86 architectural platform. Binary compilation for the E2k microprocessor is very effecient, strictly compatible and transparent for the user.

Het probleem is dat Elbrus momenteel geen financiële middelen heeft om de E2K te (laten) produceren. Eind november maakte de investeringsbank Robert Flemings nog bekend op zoek te zijn naar poen om een fabriekje bij elkaar te regelen (thanks Hilko voor de link).