Sean Pelletier
Recent posts
Apparently, yields on the new 80u process at TSMC still need major improvement as DigiTimes reports that ATI has reportedly chosen to cancel all plans to use this process this year. Both RV560 and R570 will now be produced on the more mature 90u process this year, though no plans are known for the entry level RV505 and RV535 which were...
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ExtremeTech have posted a preview of NVIDIA's new flagship mobile GPU dubbed the GeForce Go 7900 GTX. Installed in a new Dell XPS M1710 gaming notebook, this new mobile GPU is able to provide framerates that are on par with some of the fastest desktops money can buy. If you're into the thought of gaming on the run or a frequent...
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The Inquirer is reporting that Intel is facing some major issues regarding FSB speeds with their upcoming processor architectures. Apparently, there are some major bandwidth considerations which must be made as multiple cores will all be fighting for real estate to dump data. Could Intel be forced to look beyond the traditional FSB and use...
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Nested within a story on DigiTimes which covered the financial aspect of the last few months in the motherboard industry, there is a blurb regarding the launch of Intel's Conroe CPU. Apparently, motherboard vendors are looking towards a launch in the third quarter meaning that Intel would likely have a healthy performance advantage...
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CoolTechZone has published some preliminary info regarding ATI's next-generation R600 GPU. Here, their sources are indicating there will be an amazing 64 pixel/vertex shaders which will reside in a unified shader architecture. Based on either an 80u or 65u process, it will be interesting to see how far ATI can push frequencies or...
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PC Perspective has just posted a review of the EPOX EP-9U1697 GLI motherboard based on the ULI M1697 chipset. Despite being a very low cost board, the ULI chipset can utilize a patch which "unlocks" SLI functionality. Although not officially supported, the benchmark results seem to indicate that everything...
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The net has run rampant with links to a new Shockwave version of the infamous Quake III. Hardcore gamers trapped at work during the week can rejoice as they can refine their fragging skills from the comfort of their cube. If you have some spare time at work, do yourself a favor and test your skills at one of the most popular games...
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Foreign website PC Inpact reports that various vendors have been informed that ATI is changing the name of the Xpress 200 (RD480) chipset. Dubbed Xpress 1600, the new name will better illustrate the differences between itself and the new Xpress 3200 (RD580) chipset. Here, the Xpress 1600 is equipped with 16PCIe to distribute between...
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X-bit Labs sends word that ATI is preparing to provide OEM's with a new Radeon X1900 GT graphics card sku. Supposedly equipped with 36 pixel processors and 12 texture units, this card will not differ much from the 48 pixel pipeline R580 GPU used on the flagship Radeon X1900 XTX. In fact, the enthusiast community will be...
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PC Perspective has finally solved a longstanding issue regarding lockup issues for some GeForce 7900 GTX owners. Apparently, yields for G71 are not quite as high as some graphics card vendors originally thought as the random lockups have been attributed to overly optimistic factory overclocks on frequencies. In theory, it is...
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Anand has just posted a performance preview of AMD's upcoming Socket AM2 platform for your viewing pleasure. Beyond the obvious physical socket change, AMD is making the move away from DDR and switching over to DDR2 memory. Although AMD had an exceptionally efficient DDR memory controller in its architecture, there have been rumors...
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DigiTimes reports that ATI is officially claiming that their new SB600 southbridge will make its debut in May. With ATI's initial southbridge designs being less than stellar in the eyes of the community, many motherboard vendors chose to opt for a southbridge designed by ULI. With NVIDIA acquiring ULI, many design wins for ATI chipsets...
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New NVIDIA(R) Dual-Analog TV Tuner Turns PCs Into Home Entertainment Centers SANTA CLARA, CA—APRIL 5, 2006— NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today introduced the NVIDIA DualTV tuner, the first TV tuner for PCs to offer two TV tuners on a single card with comprehensive...
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PC Perspective has just posted their review of the Gigabyte iRAM storage device. Essentially a PCI card full of DIMM slots, the card uses memory modules to act as an incredibly fast hard drive. Should you like the idea of blistering fast load times and increased performance, you should certainly take a look at this ingenious new product. You...
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Victor Wang has posted some interesting infomration over at XtremeSystems regarding Intel's upcoming Conroe processor. Using a Conroe sample running at 2.4GHz and an Intel 965G motherboard, he was able to run a healthy suite of benchmarks and has posted the results for your viewing pleasure. Should the retail processors provide similar performance,...
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Although we don't usually talk about Apple here at Hot Hardware, there is a stunning new development with Mac systems today that certainly warrants our attention. Apple has officially released a public beta of a new piece of software called "Boot Camp" which will allow all Intel-based Macs to seamlessly dual-boot with Windows XP...
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Fudo over at the Inquirer reports that he has confirmed with high ranking sources that ATI's refresh of their R580 GPU will remain at 90u and not be fabbed on a smaller 80u process as originally suspected. Apparently, there will be some design changes beyond just higher core and memory frequencies. Although the current R580 core is arguably...
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The Inquirer reports that ATI is preparing to bring their dual GPU "Gemini" technology to the company's refresh of their flagship R580 GPU. Here, two GPU's will be placed on a single PCB allowing for Quad-Crossfire configurations using standard dual PCI-Express graphics card slots. A few years back, ATI did a similar thing with their...
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DigiTimes reports that Intel's next generation IGP slated for launch prior to Windows Vista will be equipped with enough performance features and functionality to pose a legitimate threat to ATI, VIA, and SiS. This new IGP will support DX9, Shader Model 3.0, OpenGL 1.5, Advanced De-Interlacing, MPEG-2 hardware acceleration, and HDMI output....
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As one of the pioneers of the gaming notebook, it comes as no surprise to see Alienware coming to the table with yet another innovation. In 2002, the original Area-51m represented the world's first gaming-specific notebook. In typical Alienware fashion, the notebook carried a pricetag that was equally as breathtaking as its performance....
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A great deal of noise has been made regarding Sony's lack of using HDMI for the SDK systems being shown at GDC. With each station being equipped with two HDMI-capable Sony displays, a single PS3 SDK, and one or two PC's hidden under the cabinet, it certainly was rather odd to see any connection other than HDMI being used. However, there was...
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The asian website Game Watch has posted some very interesting slides from Sony's GDC presentations which seem to indicate that the NVIDIA RSX graphics chipset will also handle audio. This would certainly not be the first time NVIDIA has worked with audio as anyone familiar with NVIDIA's nForce chipsets will remember the SoundStorm audio solution....
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