Editor profile

Marco Chiappetta

Managing Editor

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

Recent posts

Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Mar 02, 2007

Hello All. We've just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features and performance of Sapphire's affordable Radeon X1950 GT. Here's a snip from the piece: "Sapphire clocks the Radeon X1950 GT at levels which are close to, but slightly lower than the Radeon X1950 Pro.... Read more...

Silicon Valley & World Leaders Partner, Bring Technology To Developing Countries

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Mar 01, 2007

Silicon Valley And World Leaders To Partner, Bring Technology To Developing Countries Intel Chairman: Speeding Access Will Improve Education, Health Care, Entrepreneurism, Government Services MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 28, 2007 - Members... Read more...

New Forceware Driver For Vista Coming Soon

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Mar 01, 2007

NVIDIA just gave us a heads up to say that there will be a new Windows Vista Beta driver release available for download in the next few days. This driver will support GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series graphics boards. Here is a summary of new features and bug fixes this new beta driver addresses: New... Read more...

AMD 690G/V Series Chipset Preview And Performance Evaluation

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Feb 28, 2007

Good Morning All. Today we've taken a preview look at AMD's new 690 series chipset with integrated Radeon X1200 graphics. Poised at taking on NVIDIA's long since mature nForce 430 chipset, AMD has provided a competitive... Read more...

Intel eyes the future of Itanium

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Feb 27, 2007

C|Net has an interview with Intel's General Manager of the Digital Enterprise Group, Pat Gelsinger, on-line today. Pat talks about the convergence of the Itanium and Xeon platforms, the projected life-span of hafnium and metal gate transistors, and the heterogeneous versus homogeneous multicore debate going on within Intel.... Read more...

VIA Expands Cooperation with Geekcorps

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Feb 27, 2007

VIA Expands Cooperation with Geekcorps to Empower Remote Mali Communities Unique, sustainable technology deployments, "Cybertigi" and desert community radio stations highlight VIA pc-1 benefits in harsh environments Taipei, Taiwan, 27 February 2007 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies... Read more...

HP LP-3065 Evaluation

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Feb 26, 2007

Hello Everyone. We've just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features and performance of HP's flagship 92% color gamut, 30" LCD panel, the LP-3065. Here's a snip from the piece: "Although the work efficiency / productivity argument is an important one in the business... Read more...

VIA Launches Vista-Ready VIA CN896

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Feb 26, 2007

VIA Launches Vista-Ready VIA CN896 for Power-Efficient Desktop and Embedded Systems Featuring the VIA Chrome9 IGP core supporting DirectX 9.0 and Chromotion 3.0, the VIA CN896 PCI Express chipset enables mainstream Vista-ready VIA solutions Taipei, Taiwan, 26 February 2007 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon... Read more...

RV630 To Support GDDR4 Memory and PCI Express 2.0?

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Feb 26, 2007

Chinese website HKEPC has some supposed scoop regarding AMD/ATI's upcoming mid-range RV630 GPU. According to the story, some RV630 variants will support not only GDDR4 memory but conform to the PCI Express 2.0 specification as well. There is news regarding three flavors of R630... Read more...

Slowest Windows XP Machines Ever?

by Marco Chiappetta - Sun, Feb 25, 2007

What do you do when you've got an enormous pile of really old hardware and way too much spare time on your hands? If you're the crew at Winhistory.De, you spend days and days experimenting with Windows XP to see just how much power it really needs to boot. "The target of this project... Read more...

Microsoft ordered to pay $1.52 billion

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Feb 23, 2007

The case is long from settled, and there will likely be a littany of appeals and countersuits, but Alcatel-Lucent won the first round in their legal battle against Microsoft and has been awarded a $1.52B (that's Billion) settlement. "A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed... Read more...

AMD Barcelon Native Quad-Core Coming in June?

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Feb 23, 2007

According to sources at HKEPC, AMD is planning to launch multiple flavors of their upcoming native quad-core processors, codenamed "Barcelona" in June. And if the information they've compiled is correct, the fastest processor in the group will be clocked at 2.3GHz. "The... Read more...

AGEIA PhysX Interview

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Feb 22, 2007

ChileHardware has put together an interview with the CEO of AGEIA, Manju Hedge, regarding current and long-term plans for the company's PhysX PPU. It looks like AGIEA could be jumping on the general purpose bandwagon, ala GPGPU, and had plans to support multiple PPUs working in parallel. "We got the oportunity to interview AGEIA,... Read more...

NVIDIA Planning AGP DX10 8600s?

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Feb 22, 2007

According to this story on the Inquirer, NVIDIA is planning the release of a DX10 compliant, AGP variant of the yet-to-be-released GeForce 8600. If the article is true, NVIDIA is expected to release the card in the April timeframe. "The G84 is set to replace Geforce 7600 GS cards and these... Read more...