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Sapphire introduces Radeon X1300 and X1800 XL graphics cards

Friday, October 7th, 2005 | News | No Comments

Sapphire showed its two latest graphics cards today based on ATI Radeon X1300 and X1800 GPUs. These new GPUs from ATI offer higher performance from their 90nm chip technology.

Sapphire intend to produce several models based on the ATI X1000 series.

Source: Digitimes

Gigabyte introduces ATI Radeon X1800 graphics card

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 | News | No Comments

Gigabyte introduced two new graphics cards today, one with 512MB and the other with 256MB of memory. Both are based on the ATI Radeon X1800.

No suggested retail price has been set, and it should start shipping before the end of the month.

Source: Digitimes

Intel Sossaman and Monahan chips

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 | News | No Comments

Two future processors from Intel will be showcased in Moscow next week. The codenames of these two were announced in August.

Sossaman will be aimed at server rack and blade designs, environments where space is at a minimum. It should be launched in the first half of 2006 with dual-cpu configurations supported.

The Monahan is designed for consumer electronics like PDAs and cellphones and will probably be seen by the end of this year.

Source: Digitimes

Monitor prices set to rise amidst increased oil prices

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 | News | No Comments

Monitor manufacturers are feeling the pinch as high oil prices raise the cost of raw materials and the price of shipping and transport.

The US$200 street price of a 17 inch monitor, looks to be unsustainable, with a good chance of price rises to offset the increased costs.

Source: Digitimes

TSMC has first 65nm prototype run

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 | News | No Comments

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has completed some initial prototype runs of its 65nm technology. They predict that this technology will start to take off next year.

Source: Digitimes

Nvidia G72 GPU to be released in early 2006

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 | News | No Comments

Taiwan based graphics card manufacturer Nvidia plans to release it’s G72 GPU early next year. The new GPU, manufactured using the 90nm process will compete with the R-series from ATI.

The 90nm G72 will allow multiple GPUs to be used on a single board, much like CPU manufacturers putting two cores in a chip. Increasing performance but not stepping up the cost as much as two graphics cards.

Source: Digitimes

Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 | Hard Drives, Reviews | No Comments

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 comes in a whole lot of different sizes. The 250GB model makes a good lot of sense as it combines a size that is good for todays uses as well as not being too expensive.

By changing the number of platters or only using parts of platters Hitachi gets a whole range of hard drive sizes from a single drive.

Basic specifications are as follows…

• 8MB buffer
• SATA interface

This drive is not the most current, having being superceded the 7K500 which strangely enough only comes in 500GB.

Despite this, it is not a bad performer. The maximum transfer speeds are more than that of the 7K500, while the minimums are similar with the write minimum being a little lower.

A very good all round performer, the drive will offer faster startup times for Windows XP which makes a difference with how long you have to wait.

File writing speed is a little bit of a letdown for this drive with its speed at actually writing files to the drive being slower than many of the other SATA drives on offer today. This is however not a major letdown and the good name and history of the drive make up for it.

It runs at a cool 49 degrees celcius, which is a little hotter than its younger sibling, but still at a reasonable level.

If shopping for one of these drives and the 250GB is a little on the pricey side, consider one in the same range just with a smaller capacity.

So, rounding up…

Pros

• Decent performance
• Good drive quality with a range of sizes
• 8MB buffer

Systemax AMD Athlon 64 or Athlon 64 x2 No OS built-to-order Socket 939 PC

Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 | Desktop Computers, Reviews | No Comments

Being able to choose the components that you want for your computer before you get the computer allows you to get exactly what you want the first round. Instead of upgrading later, you are able to upgrade anything you like first, and you don’t get stuck with something that’s not quite right.

The Systemax Socket 939 desktop computer is a good choice for those looking for a powerful home computer.

The Socket 939 connection allows use of both AMD Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 processors. Absolutely everything else is customizable.

Basic specs…

• Socket 939 K8N Neo4-F motherboard
• 256MB PC3200 DDR memory
• CD-ROM
• SATA hard drive
• LAN connection

AMD Athlon 3000+ is a good choice for a processor, giving an ideal price to performance ratio in my opinion. You can pick from the Athlon 64 range, which will add up to $240. However the Athlon 64 X2 option will push it up by a minimum $390. This means that the newer Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is not offered. It’s a pitty, cause that chip is a fine choice for budget conscious buyers.

The 256MB of memory is pretty unworkable. You will need at least 512MB, but I’d recommend 1GB.

Choice of drives range from the basic 80GB all the way up to 250GB. But apart from these are the great Raptor drives from Western Digital. Although the most expensive hard disk upgrade, the Raptor is the fastest consumer drive for SATA available today.

CD-ROM drive might do, but most people should go for DVD burner, or at least the CDRW/DVD combo drive.

The other optional extras include

• Card reader
• Dial-up modem
• Upgraded Network adapter
• Wireless router
• Firewire card
• Upgraded keyboards
• Camera
• Upgraded soundcard
• Speakers
• Upgraded video card
• Monitor

Overall you can put a good PC together. The motherboard is the only thing that can not be changed, but is very well specced already.

The basic computer with my preferred upgrades of 1GB RAM, speakers, 17 inch LCD monitor and DVD writer, it comes to about $950. With Windows XP, about $1090. Everything you could need for a few more years.

Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 80GB 7200RPM SATA2 Hard Drive

Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 | Hard Drives, Reviews | No Comments

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 is a notable drive from this long time hard drive manufacturer. It is not the biggest hard drive on offer, and pretty small for a modern drive, but there are other benefits.

The main selling point of this drive is it’s price, at only around $60 dollars, it costs little compared to many of the high end offerings.

At a glance…

• 80GB drive size
• SATA2
• Single platter

The 80GB of space is provided by a single disk platter inside the drive. Inside a drive there are one or more disks (called platters). Bigger drives now have up to 5 platters inside. There is only so much that can be squeezed onto a platter with current technology so upping the number of platters is the current solution for large size drives.

SATA2 is also something unusual for a drive of this size. Mostly newer and bigger drives offer this technology, but even then it really makes no difference. Most hard drives can’t even deliver enough to fully utilise the 150MB/s bandwidth of SATA let alone the 300MB/s of SATA2. Still a nice extra though.

In terms of it’s actual performance its midfield. Nothing too spectacular and no major letdowns.

Amongst modern drives it boasts of average everything. Average I/O, access times and write transfer. However, it does boast a high bandwidth over its connection of 118MB/s. It’s file writing speeds fall only slightly behind it’s bigger brothers.

Another great feature is that it runs very cool.

Some modern drives like the Western Digital Raptor drives run very hot and actually need cooling. At only 41 degrees Celcius it will keep your computer’s insides cool.

Overall a good bargain

Pros

• Runs very cool
• Easy on your pocket
• SATA2 technology

Cons

• Small storage size compared to other modern drives