Tuesday, December 27, 2005
AMD Acknowledges Desktop CPU Shortages
The Sunnyvale, Calif., chip maker sent a letter to some of its partners stating that several of its desktop processor models were in high demand and would continue to be difficult to obtain, said two systems builders who asked to remain anonymous. One of those systems builders said the note specified the Athlon 64 3500, 3800, the dual-core X2 3800 as well as the lower end Sempron 2600 and 2800 as being in tight supply.
An AMD spokeswoman acknowledged shortages in the low-end desktop space but would not comment on specific model numbers. In a statement e-mailed to CRN, the spokeswoman said: "AMD is experiencing unprecedented demand for our desktop processors and this unprecedented demand has depleted our supply of packaging components."
Posted by WinterRaVen at 8:01 PM 0 comments
ATI Confirms R580 Product Launch Shortly
“Over the next 90 days, you will see us recapture the performance leadership from ourselves, with our R580 launch in Q2, delivering the most compelling multi-GPU graphics platform with CrossFire, and ramping OEMs with this solution in the quarter as well,” said Mr. Orton.
According to some sources with knowledge of the matter, ATI Technologies received the first commercial batch of R580 wafers several weeks ago. Sources close to the company suggest that ATI will be able to supply enough code-named R580 VPUs to fulfill the demand towards them.
The R580, , is a revamped version of the currently shipping RADEON X1800-series VPU, which code-name is R520, has been tested by ATI since July, 2005. Unofficial information hints that the R580 has 48 pixel shader processors, 8 or more vertex processors and works at high clock-speeds. The chip, however, is expected to have 16 texture mapping units (TMU), less that could be expected. The product is to support Shader Model 3.0, ring-bus memory controller that supports GDDR4 memory type and other innovations.
The primary competitor for ATI’s forthcoming R580 is recently released NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512 product from the company’s arch-rival. Nevertheless, ATI is expected to release various versions of its R580 targeting different segments of the high-end graphics cards market. According to market sources, ATI is unlikely to price its R580-based products at unprecedented levels, e.g., the part will not cost $649, a suggested retail price for the GeForce 7800 GTX 512.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:54 PM 0 comments
Friday, December 23, 2005
ATI Reveals Radeon X1900 Details Internally
ATI released their Silver Bullets for Radeon X1800 approximately two months before the launch of the card, but it took nearly six weeks after the launch for master card variants of the X1800 to show up on store shelves (and nearly as long for Crossfire motherboards as well).
The Silver Bullets presentation was a little light on details, but did confirm the R580 GPU has 48 pixel shader processors and higher clocks than R520 (a.k.a. Radeon X1800). Radeon X1900 uses a 90nm process also found on Radeon X1800.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 11:55 AM 0 comments
New Western Digital Raptor Harddisk Coming Soon - WD1500AD
WD Raptor is a unique class of hard drives that matches SCSI reliability and performance while providing simplified connectivity - all at a lower cost than Parallel SCSI drives. The SATA drives which are extremely well received at PC enthusiasts for high end gaming systems and for server and workstation environments will get an updated sibling with new features.
The new model WD1500AD is expected to be launched in late January 2006 and has the following features: 150GB storage capacity, SATA-II interface, Native Command Queing (NCQ) support, 16MB cache and 10000RPM speed. Alternate's retail price currently is 319 €. Link: http://www.alternate.de/html/shop/productDetails.html?showTechData=true&artno=A9BW18&#tecData
Posted by WinterRaVen at 11:40 AM 0 comments
Nvidia ForceWare 82.12 Beta - Windows 2000/XP/x64
- Adds support for GeForce 6800 GS AGP.
- Adds support for Dell 3007WFP panel.
- Added support for VSync on Direct3D games when running NVIDIA SLI.
- Performance enhancements for dual-core CPUs.
- PureVideo high definition MPEG-2 de-interlacing support.
- Usability enhancements when connecting to an HDTV.
- Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.0 support
For a full list of fixed and known issues please view the Release Notes.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 11:34 AM 0 comments
Nvidia ForceWare 81.98 WHQL - Windows 2000/XP/x64
- WHQL Certified
- Application compatibility fixes. For a full list of fixed and known issues please view the Release Notes.
- Added support for VSync on Direct3D games when running NVIDIA SLI.
- Performance enhancements for dual-core CPUs.
- PureVideo high definition MPEG-2 de-interlacing support.
- Usability enhancements when connecting to an HDTV.
- Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.0 support.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 11:16 AM 0 comments
Mozilla Thunderbird Email Client 1.5 RC 2
Posted by WinterRaVen at 11:05 AM 0 comments
PlexTools Professional 2.32 Released
PlexTools Professional has proven to be stable, precise and useful. It offers high quality audio and multimedia capabilities and advanced control of several powerful features of Plextor drives. The distinctive design allows ease of use for newcomers without compromising on the powerful features that experienced burners demand.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 10:43 AM 0 comments
Seagate Acquires Maxtor
Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, Maxtor shareholders will receive 0.37 shares of Seagate common stock for each Maxtor share they own. When the transaction is completed Seagate shareholders will own approximately 84% and Maxtor shareholders will own approximately 16% of the combined company. The value of the transaction is approximately $1.9 billion.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 10:41 AM 0 comments
Call Of Duty 2 Retail Patch 1.01
Posted by WinterRaVen at 10:38 AM 0 comments
ATI Radeon Catalyst 5.13 Drivers Released
Posted by WinterRaVen at 10:33 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
New Quake 4 Mappack From id
Posted by WinterRaVen at 10:47 AM 0 comments
Microsoft's New IE7 Browser To Have Increased Security
IE7 is currently only available to developers in a Community Technology Preview (CTP). The browser's new protected mode will run IE7 with lower privileges than the main operating system and the browser can only access and write to browser specific files. A "broker" process will provide communication if the browser needs to save regular files. This feature is not currently available with this preview build of IE7, but will show up with Windows Vista reaches beta 2 status.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 10:46 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
ATI's Avivo Update - H.264 Acceleration & Special Downloadable Surprise
Posted by WinterRaVen at 2:59 PM 0 comments
Info-Tek Unveils Radeon X1000 Graphics Cards For Old AGP Bus
This simultaneous release of the GECUBE RADEON X1300 and GECUBE RADEON X1600 highlights an embedded memory of 256MB DDR2 memory that enhances game visuals and facilitates real-time responsiveness. Extremely realistic colors at higher resolutions (1920x1440 and 2048x1536) transport users to a gaming dimension bordering on surrealism. The AGP interface also allows gamers to easily upgrade without replacing large PC components such as motherboards.
The GECUBE RADEON X1000 AGP series all support Avivo technology. Video capture and playback is radically improved resulting in quality at 64 times higher the number of colors currently available in current PCs. An unprecedented 10-bit processor via Avivo's display engine makes this possible.
The GECUBE RADEON X1000 AGP series also support ultra-threading technology and Shader Model 3.0, which groups together brand new pixel and vertex shaders in order to create accurate lighting and shading. Thus, gaming settings and conditions drastically raise the bar in 3D gaming.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 2:52 PM 0 comments
Microsoft Patch Day December 2005
Posted by WinterRaVen at 2:47 PM 0 comments
Thursday, December 15, 2005
DivX Play / Create Bundle For Windows 2000/XP 6.1
Posted by WinterRaVen at 8:15 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Nero 7.0.1.4 Update Available
Dear valued customers,the new demo version and the new update contain a number of bug fixes*. Please note that by the end of the year, a new demo and update version will be available.
Your Nero Team
*An overview of all release notes and features is coming soon.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 5:10 PM 0 comments
New Valve Source Engine Rendering Effects
Posted by WinterRaVen at 5:06 PM 0 comments
Nvidia To Acquire ULi
Posted by WinterRaVen at 5:04 PM 0 comments
DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtimes (December 2005) Full Download
The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes the bi-monthly D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components.
If you would like the websetup version of the runtime package, please click here.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 5:01 PM 0 comments
Monday, December 12, 2005
X1800XT Crossfire Cards Out
Posted by WinterRaVen at 8:23 AM 0 comments
Modern Games And Modern GPUs: The Grand Clash
This article is dedicated to the graphics cards that are relevant to the current situation and the latest games, which is why it does not test relatively outdated titles like Doom III or Far Cry and also does not touch upon multi-GPU setups, as it is obvious that due to lack of competition multi-GPU NVIDIA GeForce-based solutions are the fastest and the most expensive today.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 8:16 AM 0 comments
Friday, December 09, 2005
Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification - December 2005
Posted by WinterRaVen at 6:35 AM 4 comments
ATI Catalyst Drivers 5.12 Released
Posted by WinterRaVen at 6:29 AM 0 comments
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Diskeeper 10 Released
- Core enhancements to the new comprehensive defragmentation engine offer faster performance, less resources usage and more thorough file and free space defragmentation
- Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology (I-FAAST™) learns the performance characteristics of each drive and sequences the most commonly-used files for the fastest possible access
- Enhancements to I/O Smart™, which intelligently monitors drive access during defragmentation, allows transparent background defragmentation so you never experience a performance hit, even during system peak production times
- Terabyte Volume Engine™ defrags large volumes, SANs, RAIDs and NAS, quickly and more thoroughly.
- Enhanced user interface provides easy configuration and scheduling as well as reports on disk health, real time performance and fragmentation statistics.
- Native 64 bit operating systems support.
- New Diskeeper Professional Premier Edition is the ultimate edition for power users and high powered workstation computing.
Diskeeper 10.0 is now available for sale and can be purchased through your favorite reseller.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:56 AM 0 comments
IE7 Public Beta Due Early Next Year
It's not clear if the public pre-release will be branded Beta 2; however, it does coincide with the expected Beta 2 launch of Windows Vista, which will also be open to the public. "We want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to try a pre-release version of IE7 and tell us how it works with their web sites, their applications, their add-ons, and how they use the web overall," said Hachamovitch.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:29 AM 0 comments
Monday, December 05, 2005
Hynix Debuts 512Mbit GDDR4 DRAM
The fourth-generation graphics memory GDDR4, which improves data processing speed by close to two times than that of GDDR3, is ideal for 64-bit computer operating systems that manage vast amounts of data at once. The Hynix’s 16Mx32 512Mb GDDR4 operates at 2.9Gbps and processes 11.6 Gigabytes of data in 1 second.
Hynix will shortly begin to sample its GDDR4 products to leading graphic chipset suppliers and plans to start mass production in early 2006. Hynix plans to introduce its GDDR4 DRAM with 14.4GB speed by second half of 2006.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 9:03 AM 0 comments
ATI Catalyst 5.12 Performance Preview @ Anandtech
There are really quite a few questions to be asked about this driver. After adding up everything we wanted to do, the sheer number of tests we had laid out was enormous. In an effort to be more efficient ourselves, we decided to break our analysis of the 5.12 driver up. This article is meant as a quick look at the benefits of ATI's dual core enhancements on a few select games running on X1K series hardware. We will compare this driver to the old one as well as dual core performance to single core performance.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 8:59 AM 0 comments
Sunday, December 04, 2005
New Unreal Tournament 2004 Patch
Posted by WinterRaVen at 2:23 PM 0 comments
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Counter-Strike: Source Update Available
- Added de_nuke with High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting
- The Bomb (C4) can no longer be planted on breakables, movable physics props, or other players
- Fixed problem where players were not always “grabbing onto” ladders that were approached from above
- Crouching while traversing a ladder reduces the player’s speed (matches CS 1.6 behavior)
- Improved door logic to prevent doors from opening into the player using them
- View-smoothing is now done when going down stairs as well as up
- Bomb-related sounds play for everyone correctly now (not just the bomb-planter)
- First-person spectators are blinded and deafened just like the person they are observing
- Fixed incorrect bullet penetration calculation through concrete+grate materials
- Fixed changeteam exploit
- Fixed DX7 early prop fade-out
- Fixed rare player animation issue while holding grenades
- Fixed apparent lockup/hang due to the disconnect dialog showing up over the quit menu and hiding it
- Fixed crash when shooting explosive objects that would result in the shooter’s immediate death
- Opening the buy menu and equipment menu on the same frame no longer leaves the buy menu in a bad state
- DEagle no longer always plays deploy animation when starting to spectate its owner
- Non-localized HintText displays correctly again
- Added "mp_disable_autokick " so players with rcon access aren't idle-kicked
- “soundscape_flush” no longer forgets about soundscape entities
- Exposed VIP player index to plugins/mods
Counter-Strike: Source Bot Changes
- Several navigation improvements (jumping, ladders, general movement)
- Various CPU performance optimizations
- Bots are more attentive to enemy noises now
- Bots throw their grenades when surprised by an enemy correctly now
- Bots can open doors when attacking with a knife now
- Fixed bug preventing CT bots from hiding to guard a bomb defuser
- Fixed a few issues where bots were trying to plant the bomb in bad places
- Bots now break breakables they touch while stuck or crouched
- Fixed bots not knowing if the cs_havana window is shut
- Adding the “bot_join_delay” ConVar to delay bots joining after a map change
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:52 PM 0 comments
Nvidia 7800 GTX 512MB Retail Shortage
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:45 PM 0 comments
AMD Athlon64 FX-60 Toldeo On January 10th
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:41 PM 0 comments
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS For OEM Only
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:33 PM 0 comments
New Logitech SetPoint Software 2.47 Released
Posted by WinterRaVen at 7:27 PM 0 comments
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Java Runtime Environment Version 5.0 Update 6 Released
Java technology opens up a wealth of exciting possibilities for consumers. It enables just about any application - including games, tools, and information programs and services - to run on just about any computer or device. From desktop PCs to mobile handheld devices and cell phones, Java technology today is just about everywhere.
Posted by WinterRaVen at 11:12 AM 0 comments