Tech Extreme heeft een interresant stukje geschreven over OEM's, wat hun invloed is op de hardware producenten en belangrijker: wat de invloed is van monopolistische leverciers (lees Intel & Microsoft) is op de positie van de OEM's:

You would think that, since they are makers of OEM components, industry manufacturers (in a business sense) work for OEMs. At an initial glance, OEM's are the driving force of the computer industry. They put pressure on AMD and Intel to release chips that are faster and cheaper. If an OEM picks a particular video card like one from 3dfx or based on Nvidia cores, then that particular company gets a big boost. But, really, monopolistic titans of the manufacturing industry can bend OEMs to their knees at a moments notice.

[...] But, the question remains: how did OEMs let themselves get so bullied for so long? Well, the OEM market is extremely competitive, and therefore demands the lowest price around - all the time. When manufacturers like MS and Intel offer lower prices for loyalty and capitulation, the OEMs respond out of market share concerns. But, as someone in our own TechExtreme forums once said, "No one stays King forever." And everybody, even OEMs, have their breaking point.

PC Extremist meldt dat Samsung een CD-R / CD-RW / DVD combo gaat uitbrengen. De drive zal op 4x je cd's kunnen (her)fikken, leest ze vervolgens op 24x en fungeert verder ook als een 5x DVD player. Thanks MiWa® voor de tip.

Samsung certainly seems to be busy, the company has announced the introduction of a Combo drive, like the Toshiba and Ricoh drives announced recently (both now shipping) that combines CD-R/CD-RW rewritable technology with DVD technology. Officially called the COMBO (SM-304) , the drive provides 4X CD-Recording, 4X CD-ReWritable, 24X CD-ROM reading and 4X DVD-ROM reading speeds in a single drive. The drive sports 120ms DVD and 110ms CD average access times, a 2MB cache buffer, EIDE/ATAPI interface and relies on Adaptec’s Easy CD Creator and Direct CD software for recording/rewritable chores. It also included is Cyberlink’s PowerDVD software for DVD movie decoding. The retail bundle will be priced at $349 and begins shipping May 1st, 2000.

The drive utilizes Annular Mask Lens (na 0.6 and 0.5), which is a patented on core pick-up component, and utilizes 2 laser diodes, 1 photo diode, 1 optical lens type and includes Samsung’s ARS (acoustic-noise reduction system) technology. Samsung also mentions support for high-speed digital audio extraction (DAE).

Eric van Fast Graphics vertelt dat hij van Dyme een leuke PC heeft mogen ontvangen waarin een heuze Elsa Gladiac GeForce2 GTS kaart woont. Uit zijn 3D Mark 2000 benchmarks blijkt dat hardware T&L tot een resolutie van 1600 x 1200 sneller is dan via de CPU, in dit geval een P3-866. De benchmark pic is wat te groot om hier neer te planten dus fiets even naar Fast Graphics voor de rest van de info.

Dyme computers just sent me a fully loaded Intel Pentium III 866 machine with 256 MB RDRAM and an Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS card. No need to explain that we're dealing with a pretty speedy system here. To give a little scoop, here are some of the 3DMark 2000 scores that I pulled of this system.

[...] As you see, in the 1600x1200 resolutions the T&L unit is still outperformed by the Pentium III 866. In all other resolutions the GeForce 2's T&L unit shows its muscles, outperforming the P III 866 every time. More benchmarks and background info coming soon.

CNN meldt in dit interessante bericht dat het Amerikaanse Justice Department en 19 staten een brief hebben gestuurd naar rechter Thomas Penfield Jackson waarin ze een aanbeveling doen om Microsoft op te splitsen in twee delen. Microsoft werd al eerder schuldig bevonden aan het misbruiken van zijn monopolie positie, het wachten is nu op de uitspraak van de rechter. Hieronder een gedeelte:

Federal District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson on Friday is expected to receive details of a last-minute proposal by the Justice Department and 19 states for antitrust violation sanctions against Microsoft.

The judge will consider that filing and the software giant's response in advance of a hearing on the proposed breakup of Microsoft on May 24.

The government and attorneys general are expected to file a single proposal by Friday's deadline: That Microsoft be broken into two parts, to prevent it from engaging in any anti-trust behavior in the future.

The government's proposal is expected to forbid the split companies from combining for 10 years.

Jackson ruled earlier this month that Microsoft repeatedly violated anti-trust laws and "placed an oppressive thumb on the scale of competitive fortune, thereby effectively guaranteeing its continued dominance in the relevant market."

Sources close to the talks suggest that a single proposal will be filed with the court, rather than separate briefs submitted by the government and the states -- an option offered by the judge.

"There will be one document which will be the voice for the Department of Justice and virtually all of the states," said a source, although "one or two states may choose to put in an appendix or footnotes" to record their differences of opinion in some areas.

Bedankt Snowy voor de link.

TheMask stuurt ons een link naar WebWereld waar wordt gemeld dat de domeinhandelaren van Hitdomains.com voor 8 miljoen Hell.com in de etalage hebben staan. Mocht de domeinnaam daadwerkelijk verkocht worden dan zou dat een nieuw record betekenen:

Volgens Hitdomains staat Hell.com garant voor gigantische bezoekersaantallen. Nu al komen 100.000 unieke bezoekers per maand op de site af, waarop niet veel is te beleven. Met gerichte reclamecampagnes ("Go to Hell.com") kan dit nog veel verder worden opgekrikt, aldus Hitdomains.

Hitdomains is overigens niet de eigenaar van het domain. Dat is Kenneth Aronson, lid van het digitale kunstenaarscollectief The Final.org. Aronson kreeg te maken met het ironische feit dat hij teveel bezoek trok met de site. The Final.org kon de grote bezoekersaantallen niet aan en besloot zich te ontdoen van het domein.

Bij Siliconews is een interview geplaatst met Cathy Abbinanti, PR vrouwtje bij AMD. De gestelde vragen hebben uiteraard vrijwel allemaal betrekking op de AMD Duron (Spitfire) en de Thunderbird. Hieronder wat gedeeltes:

What is the current situation for "Socket A" motherboards that will support the Spitfire? Will Socket A boards be available when the Spitfire launches? Will AMD be producing a chipset for this board or will Socket A boards only feature 3rd party chipsets?

AMD expects broad industry support from our infrastructure partners for Socket A, and we expect there will be more than adequate MB supply to meet Socket A product availability. AMD's next generation chipset, the AMD-760, will support Socket A. As far as 3rd parties go, as production of the Spitfire processor ramps, we expect [motherboards] to be introduced featuring chipsets from ALi, SiS and VIA.

Is an SMP chipset planned for either the Spitfire or Athlon?

SMP is planned for an AMD chipset late this year. That's all I can say on that one.

How do you think the Spitfire compare to the CeleronII in price/performance/availibility?

Spitfire is designed to compete aggressively against the Intel Celeron. That's about as specific as I can get right now.

edward schrijft: "Guillemot heeft z'n GeForce2 GTS, de Prophet II voorgesteld. Hij komt er in 2 varianten: de Prohet II GTS 32MB DDR en de Prophet II Pro GTS 64MB DDR. Deze laatse zal ipv Infenion Hyundai geheugen hebben, wat volgens Guillemot betere resultaten oplevert bij het overklokken . De kaarten worden begin mei in de schappen verwacht, de 64MB versie midden / eind mei":

Today, 27th of April, I was able to attend a Press Conference with Guillemot Belgium. Main topic was of course the announcement of their GeForce2 GTS based 3D Prophet2 GTS 32MB cards. In the coming month Guillemot will release 2 cards, one 32MB version and a 64MB version. Both boards will be targetted at High Power Users who want to overclock these babies. Because of this Guillemot has included a special heatsink with high-power fan and little heatsinks on all of the memory chips. The 32MB board, which will be in stores early next month, will feature DDR RAM from Infinion. According to the Guillemot R&D guy who did the presentation this Infinion DDR RAM is the only DDR RAM that is available right now in large enough quantities at the 333MHz speed. He did mention, very honestly, that this Infinion Ram is pretty bad at overclocking, these chips are only stable up to 340MHz.
He actually showed us this by overclocking the sample he had in the demo machine to 340 and to 350 MHz. At 340 the Quake3 test ran fine but at 350 the machine crashed after a couple of minutes.The base core speed of both boards is 200MHz but higher clocks are no problem as long as the AGP port can deliver enough power to the chipset (according to the same R&D guy the main issue with overclocking is the voltage and current supply of the motherboard, so if your overclocking fails it might be your motherboard).

Meer info bij Beyond 3D.

Movemoor schrijft: "De introductie van Windows Me, de volgens microsoft echt laatste versie van het Windows 9x platform heeft wat vertraging opgelopen. De RC1 komt nu uit op 5 mei. Op 9 juni zou dan de definitieve versie moeten uitkomen. Windows ME is bedoeld voor thuisgebruikers en zou in eerste instantie ook geen zaken zoals Netware ondersteuning bevatten. Onder druk van klanten heeft mIcrosoft dit echter al op moeten geven. Features van Windows ME zijn onder meer de integratie met scanners en camera's, internet applicaties en, jawel... het ontbreken van MS-DOS in realmodus":

The schedule for Windows Millennium Edition ("Windows Me") was recently revised somewhat, pushing the final release back a week; this is the second such delay in recent weeks. According to internal Microsoft documents, the company's final product based on the old Windows 9x code-base will now hit the its first release candidate (RC1) build on May 5th and the final release has been knocked back one week to June 9th. "The Windows Millennium product is another in the evolution of consumer operating systems developed by Microsoft," the document reads, "and it delivers clear customer value by focusing in on a few feature areas."
Indeed, Windows Me was discussed at WinHEC this week as well, and the message was clear: This release marks the end of Windows 98. "Let me say it clearly for you: Windows Millennium Edition is the last full release of an operating system product from Microsoft that's based on the Windows 98 code base," said Microsoft VP Carl Stork. "So that will be the important product this Christmas, but next year the consumer segment is going to start to move in full momentum to using the Windows 2000-based technology."

[...] What Windows Me won't include when it ships is native support for Intel SpeedStep ("Geyserville") processors, Intel's "Willamette" upgrade to the aging Pentium III line (which will ship this fall), native mode IDE, bootable "Firewire" 1394 devices, ACPI swappable bay devices, parental controls for Internet gaming, or system migration features. Instead, these features will be supported in the next consumer release, code-named "Whistler," which is now due on April 15, 2001, according to another internal document. Microsoft has entered into a rapid-fire release cycle for Windows, eschewing the monolithic development times that kept Windows 2000 in the oven for over three years. So Whistler will be a small upgrade, or "point release," to Windows 2000, but it will feature a number of simplicity and ease-of-use improvements that should please consumers as well as business users. It will also include COM+ 2.0, the base of Microsoft's platform for Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS); COM+ 2.0 Beta 1 is expected soon.

Klik hier voor meer info.

Vipertje schrijft dat er bij Thresh's FiringSquad een review is te vinden van de Elsa Gladiac, waarschijnlijk een van de snelst verkrijgbare GeForce2 GTS videokaarten:

"Eindelijk eens benchmarks van een echte board, en niet een reference plank. Er zit ook een leuke games bundle bij (je mag hem zelf samenstellen!) en TV-out. Hij overclockte goed en was duidelijk sneller dan de GeForce, hoewel slechts alleen duidelijk merkbaar in de hoge resoluties vanwege de beperkte memory bandwidth":

It's a bit hard to judge the GLADIAC right now, as it's the first retail card based on the GeForce 2 GTS chip that we've received. We certainly like the game bundle, and the performance of the GeForce 2 chip was never in doubt. Since ELSA decided to use the reference design, testing with the GLADIAC felt exactly like the reference board.

Based on the announcements we've seen from WinHEC, it certainly looks like the ELSA board is going to be one of the better cards out there. Not because of the performance, lets face it, any GeForce 2 card is going to be fast.

The reason we feel the GLADIAC is going to be one of the better boards is the added features that round out the package. On top of the game bundle, you've got ELSA's 6-year warranty. In addition, ELSA is seriously stepping up its retail presence this year, finding a board shouldn't be as difficult as it was in the past. With this comes the added convenience of being able to easily return the board if something goes wrong with it. As an added option, you can create your own home videos with the optional VIVO module.

Bij Riva Station staat overigens ook wat info over de Elsa Gladic (Thanks hjs voor de link).

De DPC Hitparade Top 30 van 27 april 2000

1. 51,920 [Dutch Power Cows] Interior Lulu(1, Totaal:3,057,764)
2. 40,675 [Dutch Power Cows] wiho(2, Totaal:8,373,547)
3. 15,234 2fast4u [Dutch Power Cows](3, Totaal:595,481)
4. 14,706 [Dutch Power Cows] BaDMaN(4, Totaal:193,707)
5. 11,247 d.v.d.loevering(5, Totaal:39,233)
6. 9,503 [Dutch Power Cows] Clan [AU] & co(6, Totaal:194,873)
7. 7,878 [Dutch Power Cows] Sub-Team Hack BV(7, Totaal:507,845)
8. 7,423 [Dutch Power Cows] ThE RaVeR(8, Totaal:404,637)
9. 6,521 [Dutch Power Cows] AmgS(9, Totaal:270,619)
10. 6,239 [Dutch Power Cows] Jurgen Wildhagen(10, Totaal:901,613)

En de nummers 11 tot en met 30:

11. 6,002 [Dutch Power Cows] ActionQuakers United(11, Totaal:98,062)
12. 5,806 [Dutch Power Cows] Jobe(12, Totaal:570,378)
13. 4,613 [Dutch Power Cows] DPC Civility Team(13, Totaal:256,849)
14. 4,500 Jorma(14, Totaal:1,044,847)
15. 4,424 [Dutch Power Cows] Eddict(15, Totaal:516,334)
16. 4,165 [DUTCH POWER COWS]USRFORCE CLAN(16, Totaal:494,397)
17. 4,145 Richard Zuidhof(17, Totaal:507,124)
18. 3,837 [Dutch Power Cows] Theo Nieuwstraten(18, Totaal:247,043)
19. 3,702 [Dutch Power Cows] #GamePoint(19, Totaal:59,439)
20. 3,640 Chainsaw(20, Totaal:600,433)
21. 3,484 p.c.d.van.soelen(21, Totaal:69,162)
22. 3,467 [Dutch Power Cows] #hekje team(22, Totaal:506,065)
23. 3,260 bjonkhart(23, Totaal:133,162)
24. 3,238 [Dutch Power Cows] Sienema(24, Totaal:1,321,433)
25. 3,185 [Dutch Power Cows] NoRRoD Computers(25, Totaal:34,742)
26. 3,159 [Dutch Power Cows] Graasland(26, Totaal:20,935)
27. 3,116 [Dutch power Cows]Qwie(27, Totaal:22,876)
28. 3,065 [Dutch Power Cows]_______PcDealer(28, Totaal:54,538)
29. 2,825 delabie(29, Totaal:14,333)
30. 2,815 [Dutch Power Cows] franklin(30, Totaal:198,355)

De Top 15 teams van 27 april 2000

1.( 1) 849,844 Russian Team
2.( 1) 801,723 Slashdot.org
3.( 0) 779,768 AnandTech
4.( 0) 716,183 HackZone Team -- Combined power of Russia and exUSSR countries
5.( 0) 562,530 Dutch Power Cows
6.( 3) 439,710 Team Warped (OS/2)
7.( 0) 438,095 The Amiga RC5 Team effort
8.( 2) 418,713 #DeathMatch
9.( 1) 385,932 Team EvangeLista (Macs Rule! :-)
10.( 0) 359,936 Japan Windows NT Users Group
11.( 0) 298,704 Libertarians for Privacy (Freedom Works!)
12.( 29) 281,386 Team OS/2 Japan
13.( 1) 272,855 Team Hungary STB+
14.( 1) 272,294 Japan FreeBSD Users Group
15.( 0) 255,029 CCC.de

Teams om ons heen (total stats):
15.( ) Czech RC5 Team (Tot:98,737,041, Gis:205,683)
16.( ) CCC.de (Tot:91,060,712, Gis:255,029)
17.( ) Team OS/2 Japan (Tot:83,837,636, Gis:281,386)
18.( ) #DeathMatch (Tot:83,035,853, Gis:418,713)
19.( ) Dutch Power Cows (Tot:77,425,536, Gis:562,530)
20.( ) PINGUIM: Portugal Is Now Going Up In Megakeys (Tot:74,356,672, Gis:177,781)
21.( ) Team FreeBSD (Tot:70,835,505, Gis:203,107)
22.( ) SysOpt.com/Tweakit.com (Tot:70,599,910, Gis:160,698)
23.( ) LinuxNET RC5 (Tot:68,315,555, Gis:68,323)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Wanneer halen we ze in:
Czech RC5 Team: 60 dagen
CCC.de: 45 dagen
Team OS/2 Japan: 23 dagen
#DeathMatch: 40 dagen

Dutch power cows is vandaag 5e en heeft een kans van een op 76 om de sleutel te vinden!

Elmbo meldt dat Tom weer een uitgebreide review heeft geschreven, volgens Tom is dit de langste lap text die hij ooit heeft geschreven voor een review .

GeForce 2 GTS has left a mixed kind of impression on me. On the one hand, it's clearly the fastest 3D chip out there right now and it will remain for quite a while. Buying 3D cards with GeForce 2 won't be a mistake. It's got all that you need, high pixel and texel fill rate, integrated T&L, the fancy shading engine, HDTV support (which I did not even mention in the review to keep it from becoming my new book), .... However, if you are the owner of a GeForce card, don't start scraping all your money together so that you can afford the $300-350 for a 32 MB GeForce 2 GTS card. The benchmark results showed you how few applications offer a meaningful improvement from switching from GeForce to GeForce 2 GTS.[break]Hij heeft ook nog wat nuttige benchmarks gemaakt waar je kan zien hoe de kaart scaled met verschillende CPU's. De conclusie is simpel, je hebt geen 1 Ghz CPU nodig voor deze kaart aangezien de Celeron 600 op 1152x864 evenveel FPS haalt als de Athlon 1 Ghz:[/break]You can see that Athlon actually overtakes Pentium III in Quake 3 Arena and Celeron 600 is perfectly fine with GeForce 2 as well. At 1600x1200 all CPU score the same results, because at this resolution fill rate is the bottleneck.

If you should have wondered at which resolution the impact of GeForce2's memory bandwidth limitation kicks in, here is the answer. Latest at 1152x864x32 its memory problem toys with GeForce 2 GTS. Is that sad or what?

The Source schrijft dat Intel onder druk van privacygroeperingen heeft besloten te stoppen met het toevoegen van een processor ID op komende CPU's (Willamette) en daarnaast ook afziet van andere hardware certificaten :

In January 1999, Intel said it would wire a unique ID into each Pentium III chip, but then disabled it after privacy activists began a boycott and a prominent House Democrat denounced the plan.

An Intel management committee, after hearing from marketing, privacy, and engineering representatives who were opposed to the idea, reportedly made the decision not to include similar features in the much-anticipated Willamette chip, the source said.

Besides the serial number, the other missing features include support for hardware digital certificates -- something banking and finance firms would have preferred, the source said.

AMD heeft gisteren op haar jaarlijkse aandeelhoudersvergadering de L2 cache groottes van Mustang en Thunderbird bekendgemaakt. De Mustang krijgt 1Meg cache en bij de Thunderbird wordt dit geheel naar verwachting 256KB. Onderstaande quotes zijn geript uit de speech van AMD CEO Jerry Sanders en zijn vriendje Hector Ruiz:

This quarter, we will extend our leadership with two new versions of the AMD Athlon processor family that incorporate on-chip L2 cache for performance enhancement. The first version, code-named "Thunderbird," will feature 256 kilobytes of on-chip L2 cache and is targeted at the performance segment of the PC market. It will be produced in both our Texas megafab - Fab 25 - and in our new megafab in Dresden - Fab 30.

A second, reduced-cost version, featuring more on-chip cache than the competitive offering for the value segment, will also be introduced this quarter. This version, code-named "Spitfire," is being manufactured in our Texas megafab and will be marketed under the brand name "Duron."

We expect to out-perform the competitive offerings on a clock-for-clock basis while maintaining our industry-leading position on clock speeds. Today we are demonstrating computer systems powered by both the AMD Thunderbird processor running at 1 gigahertz and the AMD Duron processor running at 700 megahertz.

If today's AMD Athlon processor is a home run, these new versions are grand slams!

[...] By the final quarter of the year, we plan to introduce the ultimate AMD Athlon processors. These versions feature an enhanced core, up to one megabyte of on-chip L2 cache, unique power management features, and a few other surprises.

For the longer term, we are well along in the development of our eighth-generation processor core that will be the basis of the "Hammer" family. But that's a story for another day. Let it suffice to say that these eighth-generation processors will be x86 64-bit cores that will ultimately supercede the AMD Athlon processor in our current market segments and permit further penetration of the workstation and high-end server markets.

Het complete transcript van de speech kun je nalezen op AMD.com.