The Tech Zone heeft een artikel geschreven waarin zij een GeForce2 GTS met 64MB vergelijken met een GeForce2 GTS met 32MB. Om de vergelijking eerlijker te maken draaien allebei de kaarten op 220Core/360mem, omdat de geteste Hercules Prophet II 64MB standaard op deze setting draait. Omdat de Hercules Prophet II 32MB niet op deze setting kon draaien, is voor de test een 32MB ELSA Gladiac gebruikt. Zij kwamen tot de conclusie dat een 64MB kaart voor de meeste mensen op dit moment weinig zin heeft, behalve als je per se Q3A op 1600x1200 wil draaien. Bij 1600x1200 onder Q3A was het verschil overigens ook nog maar 5%.

As we can see, there is a performance advantage with the 64 Meg GeForce2. However, this advantage doesn't show up until we start increasing resolution and color depth. For someone who just play their games at 1024x768x32 bit, the 32 Meg Geforce2 is every bit as fast as the 64 Meg unit. Now it's true that there will be games coming out in the future that will take full advantage of the extra 32 Megs of RAM but by that time, we'll have NV20 or 25 to play around with.

You do get more than just a faster video card with the 64 Meg Prophet. For the extra $65 to $100, you get TV out and DVI output. This may or may not be important to you. Since I play at 1600x1200 I found the extra speed a 64Meg Prophet brings to the table worth the additional cost. Also the card is just plain good looking with those cool blue RAM sinks.

Bij Yahoo!Finance is het complete persbericht van de nieuwe AMD Duron processor te vinden. In het bericht schrijft AMD dat er ook al veel OEM's zijn gevonden die in zee gaan met de Duron. Heel belangrijk voor de financiële toekomst van AMD. Onder de OEM's zijn ook grote namen als HP, Compaq en IBM. Hieronder vind je het complete persbericht:

SUNNYVALE, Calif--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2000-- AMD today introduced the new AMD Duron(TM) processor, delivering industry-leading performance for businesses and consumers in the value PC space, characterized by systems that typically sell for less than $1,000. The AMD Duron processor is available today at speed grades of 700MHz, 650MHz, and 600MHz.

The AMD Duron processor provides up to 25 percent more performance on many industry leading benchmarks than an Intel Celeron processor at the same clock speed. Leading computer manufacturers worldwide have announced plans to offer AMD Duron processor-based systems, including Compaq, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, NEC, Systemax and others.

AMD Duron processor-based systems are ideal for applications commonly used by value-conscious users, including word processing, sending or receiving e-mails, managing personal finances, surfing the Internet and running edutainment products.

``With the AMD Duron processor in the value space and the AMD Athlon(TM) processor in the performance space, AMD now offers superior solutions, top to bottom, across all desktop system price points. Regardless of how much business and home users want to spend, at any given system price point, they will get a better PC with an AMD processor-based system,'' said Hector Ruiz, president and chief operating officer of AMD.

``During the past year, thanks to strong execution and its overall processor portfolio, AMD grew its unit share of the microprocessor market noticeably. AMD looks to continue its success with the AMD Duron processor,'' said George Iwanyc, principal analyst at Dataquest.

``The AMD Duron(TM) processor is an innovative processor designed for the value PC market. With the AMD Duron processor, computer users will get a PC capable of running today's applications with ease, and with enough power to run the applications of tomorrow,'' said Brett Faulk, director of Retail Desktop Product Marketing at Compaq.

``With the AMD Duron processor, value PC purchasers will receive a no-compromise chip, offering the ultimate combination of capability, durability and value in low-cost systems,'' said Dick Grote, R&D Manager for HP's home products division.

``IBM is committed to providing high-quality computing solutions for individual customers,'' said Tom Tobul, worldwide manager desktop product marketing. ``With the new AMD Duron processor, IBM expects to continue to build on the success we have had with past AMD processors.''

``We recognize the AMD Duron processor is a superior product with its innovative processor core design and affordability,'' said Koichi Inoue, general manager, Desktop Products Division, Personal Systems Business Group, Fujitsu Ltd.

About the AMD Duron(TM) Processor

The AMD Duron processor is a derivative of the award-winning AMD Athlon processor and is designed to provide an optimized solution for value conscious business and home users. Employing an innovative design, the AMD Duron processor features a sophisticated cache architecture with 192KB of total on-chip cache; a high-speed 200MHz front-side bus, and a superscalar floating point unit with enhanced 3DNow!(TM) technology.

The AMD Duron processor offers value conscious buyers access to technology and performance that stands out among other processors in its class. It reflects AMD's 30 years of design and manufacturing expertise and sales of more than 125 million PC processors. AMD Duron processors are manufactured on AMD's 0.18 micron process technology in Fab 25, Austin, Texas.

Met dank aan Tspawn voor de tip.

irrelevant schrijft: "Die advocaat kiest wel iedere keer de goede partij!"

Een advocaat die eerder de anti-trustzaak van de Amerikaanse overheid tegen Microsoft leidde, behartigt nu de belangen van Napster. De advocaat, David Boies, vindt Napster belangrijk voor de consument:

In een korte reactie gaf Boies aan dat hij de Napster-zaak belangrijk vond voor de consumenten en muziekproducenten 'omdat het regels bepaalt hoe men in de toekomst moet omgaan met digitale muziek op het nieuwe medium'.

Erhnam schrijft: "Het testen van Windows Millennium (Windows Me) is voorbij. Windows Me ligt in september in de schappen en is de opvolger van Windows98 (se).":

REDMOND, Wash. -- June 19, 2000 - Microsoft Corp. today announced that the development of the Microsoft® Windows® Millennium Edition (Windows Me) consumer operating system is complete and the product has been released to manufacturing. Windows Me is the latest version of the Microsoft operating system designed specifically for the home user. It improves the home computing experience by delivering enhancements in the areas of PC health, digital media, home networking and the online experience. Consumers will be able to purchase retail versions of Windows Me on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2000.

De prijzen van Windows Me liggen in Amerika hetzelfde als de prijzen van Windows 98 SE.

In navolging van onder anderen Tom en Anand heeft ook Gamers Depot vandaag een review online gezet van de AMD Duron 700MHz. Ook bij Gamers Depot komt men tot de conclusie dat de AMD Duron een wel heel grote concurrent kan worden voor de Intel Celeron II, en dat hij waarschijnlijk snel aan populariteit zal winnen.

Do we expect to see this chip make a big splash among the gaming community? You bet! As the Celeron quickly became a popular choice because of its low price to performance delta, we expect to see similar things for Duron. Unfortunately, the BIOS in our Gigabyte board didn't have an option for adjusting the bus speed, so we're not able to comment yet on the Duron's overclocking ability.

It appears that AMD has found a winning success formula with their Athlon x86 architecture and have done an excellent job implementing it into a chip that will bring this level of performance to a whole new audience. Kudos to AMD for delivering a great chip to this market. Time will of course tell whether or not many of the OEMs jump onto the Duron bandwagon, however, I'm sure that many of our readers will see this chip as an opportunity to junk their current system and jump into a platform that will help bring them up to more current standards.

Glorix Jim schrijft dat Frosty Tech een review heeft gemaakt van de Alpha FC-PAL35. Zoals te verwachten van een Alpha koeler presteert hij prima alleen het prijskaartje is iets minder (ca. 100 piek):

The results are in; the Alpha FC-PAL35 is an excellent performer. It’s at the top of its class and I have a lot of confidence in its ability to provide consistent cooling. But look at the classic Alpha PFH6035 go! With a simple modification, it rises to the occasion and shows that it is still a very apt performer.

I can recommend the Alpha FC-PAL35 for overclockers that want the lowest temperature (without going into more exotic methods, i.e. peltiers.) Additionally, overclockers should be aware that this cooler would probably block off one or more DIMM slots when mounted on a Slot 1 converter board. Users should also take note, that a simple modification to their PPGA coolers can breathe new life into them, and can hopefully save you the cost of ordering a new cooler.

Despite it all, the FC-PAL35 is a great cooler, and should be considered by any avid overclocker. But if money is a factor, then you should probably purchase a Golden Orb instead, or if you are like me, and have an Alpha PFH6035 lying around, make the simple tape mod, and re-use it.

ZDNet meldt dat Microsoft Bungie Software heeft gekocht om de PC én de MS X-Box console van puike games te gaan voorzien. Wellicht gaan we HALO, de momenteel in ontwikkeling zijnde sci-fi game dus ook op consoles spelen?

Bungie's development staff will become an independent development studio within the Microsoft Game Division, where Microsoft said it will play a key role in developing content for the X-Box platform.

Microsoft did not disclose financial details of the deal but according to the Wall Street Journal on Monday, some analysts have estimated the company paid between $20 million and $40 million for the closely held Chicago company.

Microsoft said the deal includes buying a 19.9 percent Bungie stake from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (Nasdaq:TTWO), a current distributor of Bungie-developed titles. Take-Two will in turn acquire all rights, titles and interest to certain Bungie game properties, including the "Myth" game franchise and an upcoming action game called "Oni."

The acquisition of Bungie follows Microsoft's acquisitions of game makers FASA Interactive Technologies Inc. and Access Software Inc. last year.

Hier eens in-game screenshot uit HALO, dit spel gaat echt zwaar hard de pan uit roeleren .

Niels Tijssen submitte het nieuws dat Ome Tom een review online heeft gegooid van een vergelijking van de Celeron met de Duron processor. Doordat de Duron op een Bus Clock van 200 Mhz loopt en de Celeron maar op 66 Mhz, kan je op je klompen aanvoelen dat een Duron 700 toch een stukje sneller is dan een Celeron 700.

Duron is the close brother of 'Thunderbird', the new 'Socket-Athlon'. As a matter of fact the architectures of Thunderbird and Duron are pretty much identical. The only two differences are the size of the second level cache and the core voltage. Thunderbird comes with 256 kB on-die and full speed L2 cache, while Duron has only got 64 kB of that stuff. In both cases the L2-cache is connected to the core over a 64-bit wide interface, which has been criticized by us as well as others at the Thunderbird release already.

Most of you will certainly know that Intel's latest Celeron processors at 566 MHz and up are using the so-called 'Coppermine-128' core. This core is identical to the silicon used for Pentium III (E) processors, with half of its L2-cache disabled, resulting in only 128 kB second level cache versus the 256 kB L2-cache of Pentium III. On top of that, Intel is hindering the performance of Celeron by specifying it for a today mediocre 66 MHz bus clock. Only Celeron-overclockers know the real potential of the Celeron, the 'normal' Celeron user finds himself with a chip that is seriously limited by this slow bus clock.

You can see that Duron is much closer to the performance of its big brothers than Celeron, because AMD is using the same bus clock for Duron as well as Athlon. Intel is using the little FSB-limitation trick to make people fall into the MHz-trap. Inexperienced users might think that a Celeron 700 is just as fast as a Pentium 700. Both sell at the same price, but Celeron is significantly slower.

[break]Tom komt uiteindelijk tot een duidelijke conclusie:[/break]
There is no doubt; we've got to congratulate AMD for bringing us the best low-cost x86-processor that money can buy. Duron can't deny its Athlon-genes, which make it an excellent performer that is even able to touch high-end CPUs. Intel's Celeron has been beaten badly and if it wasn't for its excellent overclocking record, this Intel-processor would be completely obsolete by now.

[CoSD]Headbanger schrijft: "Bij Aceshardware hebben ze een zeer uitgebreide review van de Duron online gemikt. Ze beweren maarliefst 200 benchmarks te hebben. De Duron 650 doet het erg goed, hij blijkt sneller te zijn dan de p3-600 en de Athlon 600. Vraag is natuurlijk of AMD met de Duron de laag geklokte Thunderbirds niet gaat wegconcurreren.
De Duron doet het op het gebied van overklokken niet geweldig, de 650 kon tot 715 MHz worden overgeklokt. Wel is de Duron 650@715 duidelijk sneller dan de een Celeron II 850. Hieronder een hap uit de conclusie:":

Without any exaggeration, the Duron offers an earth shattering price/performance ratio! Its Arch-enemy, the Intel Celeron, is too crippled by its 66 MHz bus, and must throw in the towel at standard clock speeds. The Celeron has a better overclocking potential for now and comes closer to the Duron at overclocked speeds, but even at lower clock-speeds, the Duron leads in most benchmarks. No other chip benefits so much from better memory technology. With DDR SDRAM and other faster memory technologies around corner, the Duron has a bright future ahead. And let us not forget that the Duron has more than enough frequency headroom, so future Socket A motherboards might offer an greater overclocking potential.

If you have super 7 system and you like to play games, then the Duron offers remarkable performance (up to 250%!) gains, even though you have to invest in a new motherboard.

We appreciate that AMD offers a very strong CPU to the low budget market, but nevertheless we hope that socket A may live longer than Slot A. While the Slot A processors still offer excellent performance, we feel that AMD should offer a better upgrade path to all the owners of the Slot A motherboards.

[CoSD]Headbanger schrijft: "Om te voorkomen dat er mensen gaan zeuren dat er veel te veel AMD-nieuws op Tweakers.net staat (en wij dus anti-Intel zijn) komt hier dus wat Intel-nieuws, en wel over de Timna. The Register heeft een artikeltje hierover geschreven. Hieronder wat belangrijke en/of opmerkelijke quotes."
De Timna is Intel's nieuwe system-on-a-chip gevalletje. The Register schrijft dat het gerucht de ronde doet op Computex dat de Timna helemaal niet zou uitkomen. Het is al ver uitgesteld door de problemen met de Memory Translator Hub, en volgens The Register zou er nu te veel concurrentie voor de Timna zijn:

Because the word on the Computex street is that Timna, now officially delayed until Q1 next year, is a duck that may not hatch, never mind get round to flying.

And, those observers point out, there's more than one reason why Intel may well draw a veil over the whole Timna exercise.

First, competitive forces from both inside and outside Intel militate against Timna, in the shape of AMD's Duron and Via's bastard-creation, the Cyrix III. Although the latter is currently vastly overpriced, most think that if Via continues to hawk this CPU, which has, of course, an IDT WinChip core, rather than a Cyrix core, it will be sold into cheapo-cheapo markets at prices closer to red cents than to greenbacks.

The Timna Duck also competes against Intel's traditional Celeron family inside. Pressure from AMD in the shape of the Duron will result in Intel continuing to use its marketing muscle to drive down the price of Celerons and increase the clock speed, as roadmaps we have seen already demonstrate.

As Gigabyte's mobo clearly showed, Timna arrives in an S-370S configuration, and sources close to Intel's plans say that engineers are finding it extremely hard to build the dense mass of graphics and audio transistors into a package that is both cheap and efficient.

There are more serious technical problems for Timna too, and those are related to the now infamous memory translator hub (MTH) technology that has caused Intel so much grief over the last 18 months.

The technical difficulties to overcome with the MTH clearly remain, according to the documents we saw, but Intel, on the face of it at least, appears to want to ignore their conclusions. The most recent roadmaps we have seen show not only Timna slated for Q1 next year, but, later in the year, a Timna Plus.

Tresh's FiringSquad weet dat wij allemaal behoefte hebben aan een nieuw hoe... werkt artikel en verblijdt ons dan ook met deze lap tekst. Hierin wordt beschreven hoe optische opslag werkt, en dan in het bijzonder hoe de CD werkt. Ook de geschiedenis van de CD komt aan bod. Hier een stukje over CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) technologie, een grapje dat in veel nieuwe CD-ROM spelers te vinden is:

While CLV recording maintains that the data be moving past the laser lens at a constant linear speed, CAV recording maintains that the disc itself be spun at a constant speed In this manner, data on the outer tracks is passing by the laser lens head at a faster rate than the inner tracks. This scheme would be impractical for audio data, since audio information needs to be sent to the player at a constant rate to maintain uninterrupted playback.

The benefit to CAV is that since the disc spins at a constant rate, there's less wear and tear on the disc spin motor, and CAV drives are also quieter as a rule. All current CD-ROM drives are CAV type drives, and are capable of reading back CLV recorded data. These drives are commonly referred to as "P-CAV" or "Partial-CAV."

iXBT Labs heeft een review in elkaar gedraaid over de Intel Celeron II 677. Het overclocken van deze CPU was geen probleem, de magische 1 GHz Barrière werd doorbroken alleen de performance kwam zelfs dan nog niet boven Coppermine 733 niveau uit: een beetje teleurstellend dus:

Speaking about Intel Celeron 667, we should point out that despite a relatively high frequency, it still failed to show something extraordinary in any of the tests run: it didn't beat the youngest Intel Pentium III on Coppermine. Therefore keeping in mind that in some shops its initial price is higher than that of Intel Pentium III 500E and even 550E, it hardly has a shining future ahead. Having left the FSB frequency equal to 66MHz, Intel automatically deprived its processors of any hope to succeed.

As for the chance to overclock this processor to 1GHz, impressive value appears the only nice thing. The performance of 1000MHz Celeron turned out even lower than that shown by Pentium III 733, which means that an overclocked to 750MHz Intel Pentium III 500E will easily leave Celeron 1000 far behind.

Well, we think that AMD's Duron positioned as a solution for the Low-End market and lacking any "artificial brakes" may appear a much better choice to make in terms of price-to-performance ratio. The only thing that may change the situation in the low-cost processors sector is the integrated Intel Timna postponed till 2001. Besides the processor core, this CPU will also have the North Bridge with integrated graphics, which will allow assembling very cheap systems.

Conclusie: Als de Duron ook maar een klein beetje zover kan overclocken als de Celeron II dan zijn dat wat mij betreft weer een paar procentjes marktaandeel voor AMD meer .

Anand Lal Shimpi van ehh Anandtech komt ons verblijden met een uitgebreide review over de AMD Duron 700. De CPU blijkt prima te presteren, ongeveer op het niveau van de Athlon 650, en is volgens Anand dan ook geen slechte keuze als je niet te veel geld wilt uitgeven maar toch snelheid wilt hebben:

We came to this conclusion the first time we took a look at the Celeron and AMD is reiterating the statement with their Duron: value doesn't have to mean slow.

At 700MHz the Duron performs, across the board, between an Athlon 600 and Athlon 700. It is safe to say that a Duron 700 performs much like an Athlon 650, and at a lower cost to boot. On the Intel side of things, the Duron 700 is performing between a Pentium III 600 and a Pentium III 700 as well. But remember, neither the Athlon nor the Pentium III are the intended competitors of the Duron, even if they were the Duron wins in terms of price to performance ratio.

The Celeron is where the Duron likes to sink its teeth into; Intel's value processor that helped to kill the K6-2 and K6-III sales is now being held at the mercy of AMD's latest creation. At any default clock speed, the Celeron, even with its SSE instructions can't compare to the Duron. Chances are that the "slowest" Duron running at 600MHz would have its way with Celerons clocked at higher speeds as well. This is mainly because of the fact that the Celeron's performance is limited by its 66MHz FSB and 66MHz memory bus. [break]De CPU die eigenlijk hoort te concurreren met de Duron, de Intel Celeron II, blijkt niet opgewassen te zijn tegen het geweld van AMD: de Celeron II 566 overgeclocked naar een 100 MHz FSB kan net in de buurt van de Duron komen:[/break] A Celeron 566 overclocked to 850MHz (100MHz FSB) begins to restore competition to the value market as it can begin to measure up to the performance of the lower clocked Duron 700. At the beginning of the year Intel told us that they didn't move the Celeron to a 100MHz FSB because there was no reason to, well AMD just gave Intel 5 letters that spell out exactly why the Celeron needs a 100MHz FSB. Don't be surprised if you do see a 100MHz FSB Celeron in the future (not in the near future though), we already know that the Celeron can run on a 100MHz FSB, it's just up to Intel to decide when they should make the move. Even if Intel is to introduce a Celeron that runs off of a 100MHz FSB, clock for clock, as we have already proven, the Duron is the faster part.

Net zoals de afgelopen dagen eindigde DPC ook gisteren weer op de tweede plaats, ruim (148k) boven Slashdot, maar ook ruim (125k) onder AnandTech. :'(
Dus: zet allemaal nieuwe koeien uit, en iedereen die nog niet meedoet: help DPC en doe mee! Lees hier hoe dat moet, en wat DPC precies is en doet.

Gisteren kreeg DPC er 14 nieuwe leden bij, en het totaal komt daarmee op 2297.

De DPC hitparade top 10 van 18 juni

1. 54.451 [Dutch Power Cows] Interior Lulu (2, Totaal: 5.799.029)
2. 48.909 [Dutch Power Cows] wiho (1, Totaal: 10.147.121)
3. 22.599 [Dutch Power Cows] Chakotay (216, Totaal: 118.572)
4. 20.783 [Dutch Power Cows] Dutch Power Grazers (316, Totaal: 72.077)
5. 20.325 [Dutch Power Cows] Tuur (37, Totaal: 620.211)
6. 19.549 [Dutch Power Cows] Team EDG Ermelo (56, Totaal: 430.640)
7. 17.420 [Dutch Power Cows] The LawnMooh'er Men (5, Totaal: 1.699.716)
8. 15.862 [Dutch Power Cows] Team |>Just dU It!<| (33, Totaal: 691.398)
9. 14.607 [DPC]-Killemall says: don't eat them, feed them... (52, Totaal: 449.823)
10. 14.130 [Dutch Power Cows] Cowards (212, Totaal: 120.822)

En de nummers 11 tot en met 30

11. 13.821 [DPC] Quakers United | Cewle Coown' Cadavers (14, Totaal: 929.342)
12. 12.138 2fast4u [Dutch Power Cows] (8, Totaal: 1.179.426)
13. 10.275 [Dutch Power Cows] RTo (78, Totaal: 306.309)
14. 9.661 [Dutch power Cows] Ronnie Tober (103, Totaal: 230.449)
15. 8.643 [Dutch Power Cows] L1BERATOR (89, Totaal: 261.191)
16. 7.124 [Dutch Power Cows] Melkunie koeien voor Oranje (151, Totaal: 160.634)
17. 6.933 [Dutch Power Cows] Sub-Team Hack BV (18, Totaal: 803.266)
18. 6.711 [DPC] Cyber Cows Unlimited (23, Totaal: 748.093)
19. 6.435 [Dutch Power Cows] Dennis (986, Totaal: 11.446)
20. 6.094 [Dutch Power Cows] AmgS (48, Totaal: 489.055)
21. 5.737 [Dutch Power Cows] Collin de Grazer! (142, Totaal: 167.564)
22. 5.650 [Dutch Power Cows] Insomniacs (34, Totaal: 671.488)
23. 5.355 [Dutch Power Cows] Jobe (15, Totaal: 859.900)
24. 5.299 [Dutch Power Cows] The Vinz (129, Totaal: 185.763)
25. 5.264 Armada (340, Totaal: 66.273)
26. 5.132 [Dutch Power Cows] BaDMaN (19, Totaal: 802.276)
27. 5.106 [Dutch Power Cows] huib (1.053, Totaal: 9.770)
28. 4.996 [Dutch Power Cows] Gavin (73, Totaal: 326.494)
29. 4.775 [Dutch Power Cows] Oezie Woezie (45, Totaal: 507.316)
30. 4.770 [Dutch Power Cows] willie (437, Totaal: 48.489)

De Top 15 teams

1. (0) 1.005.845 AnandTech
2. (0) 880.459 Dutch Power Cows
3. (0) 731.725 Slashdot.org
4. (1) 626.625 Russian Team
5. (1) 622.779 HackZone Team -- Combined power of Russia and exUSSR countries
6. (0) 486.444 The Amiga RC5 Team effort
7. (2) 385.455 Team Warped (OS/2)
8. (1) 381.840 Libertarians for Privacy (1-800-ELECT-US)
9. (1) 372.537 Japan FreeBSD Users Group
10. (2) 336.282 Team EvangeLista (Macs Rule! :-)
11. (4) 297.491 Japan Windows NT Users Group
12. (0) 250.899 Team Hungary STB+
13. (0) 224.289 Team Slacker <oow umop episdn>
14. (14) 215.309 Team OS/2 Japan
15. (1) 213.444 CCC.de

Teams om ons heen (total stats)

9. () Libertarians for Privacy (1-800-ELECT-US) (Tot: 153.145.579, Gis: 381.840)
10. () @stake L0pht Labs (Tot: 146.848.698, Gis: 195.266)
11. () Japan Linux Users Group (Tot: 146.278.147, Gis: 172.164)
12. () Japan Windows NT Users Group (Tot: 133.512.813, Gis: 297.491)
13. () Dutch Power Cows (Tot: 126.270.365, Gis: 880.459)
14. () Team Hungary STB+ (Tot: 119.543.399, Gis: 250.899)
15. () Team Win32 (Windows) (Tot: 113.385.356, Gis: 208.369)
16. () Czech RC5 Team (Tot: 108.855.414, Gis: 172.330)
17. () CCC.de (Tot: 103.386.347, Gis: 213.444)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Wanneer halen we ze in

Libertarians for Privacy (1-800-ELECT-US): 54 dagen
@stake L0pht Labs: 31 dagen
Japan Linux Users Group: 29 dagen
Japan Windows NT Users Group: 13 dagen

Mijlpalen

MegaFlush 6 stats

Gisteren: 236.808
Totaal: 1.538.632

Dutch Power Cows is vandaag 2e en heeft een kans van één op 45 om de sleutel te vinden!

Na de recente speculaties over de 3dfx Napalm en nVidia NV20 durfde Wazige Angelfire Site het aan om beide chips in een vergelijking neer te zetten. Beide kaarten gaan eind dit jaar keihard met elkaar concurreren - als nVidia en 3dfx tenminsten op schema blijven lopen. nVidia lijkt met 'Hidden Surface Removal' een interessante feature in handen te hebben, waarmee zijn hun huidige geheugen bandwidth problemen mogelijk kunnen beperken:

Ok, now that we have the ugly little specs out of the way, some commentary. The NV20 uses Hidden Surface Removal. It is unknown at this point whether it actually does this to gain performance, or it is just a marketing gimmick. My suspicion is the former, as if it was just a marketing gimmick, this card would perform almost identically to the GTS, just due to memory limitations, and it wouldn't make much sense on Nvidias part to have all that fill-rate in there for nothing, especially since they could cut out half the pipelines, double the number of texturing units, and still claim the same megatexel fill-rate at a lesser cost to them. So lets assume that it is actually performing hidden surface removal to the benefit of the consumer. This means that assuming an overdraw of 3, this card will(other features notwithstanding), outperform the GTS on a 3 to 1 basis(although the AGP bus is worrying me at this point). If this is true, it would explain why Nvidia is charging so much for the GTS, as it will be worthless come winter.

Uiteraard is een vergelijking tussen twee produkten waarvan de specs nog lang niet vasstaan nogal prematuur, maar een beetje speculeren kan IMO geen kwaad (het leven is anders zo saaaaai).

Haywire* schrijft: "Amiga heeft de slag te pakken. Press release na press release spuugt het (nu) Californische bedrijf uit. Inmiddels is er ook daadwerkelijk reden tot juichen: Amiga heeft de eerste versie van de SDK voor het nieuwe Amiga systeem vrijgegeven. De SDK is o.a. te koop bij Amazon.

De systeemeisen zijn volgens Software Hut: K6-2 500, K6-III, Athlon of PII 300+, AGP2x, 128MB RAM, 10+ GB harddisk, SB16-compatible geluid, Matrox G400 Dual head (gegarandeerd ondersteund in toekomstige versies, nu werken andere kaarten ook nog), 100Mbit NIC, VGA monitor en Red Hat 6.1. Menig Tweaker die de SDK kan draaien ":

Amiga announces the release of the Amiga Software Developers Kit, the first new product to introduce the next generation Amiga platform.

The Amiga Software Developers Kit provides the initial tools and examples for developers to create exciting multi-media content for multiple devices and computing environments. The unique strength of the New Amiga comes from the partnership with the Tao Group in Reading England providing a foundation where developers are able to take advantage of a ubiquitous computing environment.

In 1984 Amiga established what is know today as multi-media. As a result of this, Amiga systems are used around the world by leading film studios, animators, and in mission critical applications. Using this as the foundation, the Amiga is moving forward by creating multi-media for numerous devices and computing environments in the home, in the office and beyond.

The Amiga OS is capable of being self-hosted, and sitting on top of other operating systems. A single application is capable of running on X86, Power PC, M.core, ARM, StrongArm, MIPs, SH3/4, and others. In a hosted environment the new Amiga runs on versions of Linux, Windows 95,98/NT, Windows CE, OS/9, QNX4, and others to be announced.

The new OS also embraces the Java language in a new, powerful and compliant way. The intent Java Technology Edition from Tao is world renowned for its speed and compact execution of Java applications. With the new environment, developers will be able to take advantage of both Java, and portable assembler coding.

"Today we take the first step towards the future," said Bill McEwen, President/CEO of Amiga, Inc. "The new Amiga SDK provides an environment where the best developers in the world can build exciting applications, that can transcend hardware limitations. Today Amiga developers can be joined by Linux and Java developers in an environment that provides the foundation for the delivery of future content."

"Tao has been talking for some time now about our developments to create Digital Heaven(TM) and we see Amiga and its community as a fundamental part of the new order that can make it happen and take an industry lead. With the sheer tenacity and the many qualities of McEwen and his Amiga team, the world is going to see Amiga as a Premier Brand for connected digital appliances," said Francis Charig Chairman of the Tao-Group.

For the developer, the new SDK creates a single environment that is scalable from handheld devices, such as cell phones upwards New versions of the kit later in the year will introduce many new media features. Both the current and future versions will enable compact, high performance and robust media solutions to be used across a broad range of devices using identical binaries.. The New Amiga SDK is available through local retailers for $99.00, and from the Amiga web site, Amazon.com and other sources available soon. A version via a Japanese distributor will be announced shortly.

Tspawn liet een link naar deze Detonator 5.30 vs 5.22 vs 5.13 benchmark vergelijking van 3DCenter.de overbeamen. Uit de resultaten kan geconcludeerd worden dat de 5.30 drivers ietsie sneller zijn dan versie 5.22, hoewel nog steeds trager dan de 5.13 drivers. In ruil voor een snelheidsverlies van circa 5% krijgen we in de 5.22 en 5.30 Detonators volgens onze Duitse vriendjes wel gratis extra stabiliteit:

Der letzte GeForce-Treiber war der offizielle Detonator 5.22 und es ist noch gar nicht lange her, als dieser veröffentlicht wurde. Dieser ist im Vergleich zu seinen Vorgängern leider etwas langsamer geworden, aber dafür auch stabiler. Jetzt gibt es schon wieder einen neuen Detonator, es ist aber mal wieder ein inoffizieller. Er trägt die Versionsnummer 5.30.

Check 3DCenter.de voor de overige benchmarks.

De Duitse hardwaresite Chip Online heeft een review gepost van de AMD Duron 650. De benchmarks laten een erg positief beeld zien voor de Duron. Qua prestaties zit-ie de Athlon Classic dicht op de hielen. Alleen in de multimedia applicatie benchmarks is het gat vrij groot. Helaas maakt Chip Online alleen een vergelijking met de Athlon 650, Athlon 600, PIII-600 en PIII-750. Het blijft daarom nog even onduidelijk hoe de Duron presteert ten opzichte van de Pentium III en Duron:

Als nu ook blijkt dat de overklokbaarheid van de Duron goed is, dan zou dit wel eens de nieuwe Celeron 300A kunnen worden.

Om te beginnen: Dit is mijn eerste nieuwsposting dus als het er niet helemaal op z'n Tweakers uitziet: Zie het aub door de vingers

Aaargh! en Obiwan brachten beide het nieuws van de nieuwe beta-support voor DivX door XMPS (X MPEG Player System). Hierbij wordt gebruik gemaakt van de Windows DLL. Het is nog erg in ontwikkeling, zoals je in onderstaande quote kunt lezen:

Well, XMPS is in a very early stage, it works fine but expect it to crash, be slow and buggy . See the features list for more details on the XMPS's capabilities. Also check the TODO list for upcoming features. OpenGL stuff is quite unstable, so be carefull, it can crash your X server.

De DLL en de source die je moet compilen zijn door één klik op te halen. Verder kan je de installatie-handleiding hier vinden.