Maxit Mag

We think that's the best way to describe what the guys at Fudzilla did, because it doesn't resemble your average hardware review. For example, you only get one graph where comparisons are rendered (for the Sandra test), so let's see what it's all about.

Lame encoding performance: 4.7x and 6.8x (without and with multithreading); as a point of reference, you can consider that a Celeron 220 (1.2 GHz) reaches 11.3x. SuperPi 32M takes a little bit more than an hour and a quarter (no comparison is given here, but you should be resourceful enough to find out how slow that is). Sandra's FPU test, on a Celeron 420 (1.6 GHz) is twice as fast, and we can say the same about the ALU.

You may add to this scarce data the "incredibly" bad impression that running Cinebench on this processor gave to them. The Windows XP installation took more than normal, too (with the decompressing stage being guilty for the delay).

Link: Fudzilla.

 Eee lovers will be pleased to hear that Asus recently confirmed the Eee PC 904 HD will be hitting the high streets soon. In a recent press release, Asus revealed exclusively to PC Retail that the new Eee will be launched "in a matter of weeks" to the UK market. It will be the cheapest of the new models and will ship with the same chassis as the 1001 with a 8.9 inch screen - a good inch smaller than the flagship model. The good news is a full size keyboard. The bad news is that it will lose the swanky solid state drive found on other models for a conventional hard drive - hence the HD after it's name. Bet you were thinking Hi Def. Ha! This is afterall a cut down version of sorts for people wanting the Eee experience on a wee budget.

The price will be very tempting at around £250. No news on the rumoured 905 model. Lets hope we see some price drops on the older models to make way for the new.

The C7 is dead, long live the Isaiah or, to call it something a little bit less biblical,  ong live the VIA Nano™.

The Nano is a 64 bits CPU made using a 65 nanometres process, with 1MB of L2 cache and an 800 MHz FSB; it will require between the 25W of the L2100 (1.8 GHz ) all the way down to the 5W of the U24000 (1.0 GHz ). Maybe you don't think that's special, but it means a huge plus if we compare it's performance with that of the C7. Don't believe us? check this out:

We still await for real reviews. For now, all we can say is that, based on the data provided in another graph, it's performance under OfficeBench 2007 is comparable with that of a Celeron-M running at the same frequency. Of course, we're extrapolating from results offered by VIA when comparing the efficiency of both processors. You need to have faith in them, first.

Link: VIA.

Among the things on display at Computex 2008, one we'd like to point out is the case design by Antec that surely deserves a place up there in the pantheon of bizarre commercial cases ever made. It's still in the prototype stage, but the Antec Skeleton doesn't hide it's virtues. Just don't bring it to a LAN party if your components are not insured.

The whole system is refrigerated by a single 250 mm working at a low speed, and from the looks of it, that shouldn't be a problem for those wishing to build fairly powerful computers.

It will be available this September, price unknown yet.

Link: AnandTech.

A few months from now, these products will be available off the shelves, which means that lots of motherboards manufacturers have both Tylersberg chipsets as well as Bloomfield processors already, for some fun-oriented probing. MSI was just kind enough to let us see what they actually look like and comment on their peculiarities.

The X58 turned out to be quite the bitch: even though it's made using a 65 nm process, it gets hotter than the current ones, the area you need to clear around the CPU is double what we're seeing now and you have to remember about those six memory slots for tri-channel configurations. Surely, changing the heatsink mounting system will be left for Mondays.

As for the Nehalem itself (tested here), I wouldn't pay much attention to those references about the octal version, because since it appeared on Intel's roadmap last year, it has sort of vanished. Maybe at the end of next year (2010 would be my bet) you'll be able to get one on your hands. So the one you see there is the eight threaded (four cores) CPU for the 1366 pin socket.

Link: Bit-tech.

Coolink today released its new Chillaramic thermal compound. Thanks to ceramic nano particles, Chillaramic achieves outstanding thermal transfer while not being electrically conductive. Chillaramic is easy to apply, easy to clean off and comes in big 10g tubes that will last you through more than 30 applications without breaking your wallet.

"Today's enthusiast user doesn't only want his thermal paste of choice to perform well, he also expects it to be safe, convenient, versatile and reasonably priced", explains Timothy Chu, Coolink CEO. "Our new Chillaramic compound was designed to meet precisely these requirements!"

Based on ceramic nano-particles, Chillaramic doesn't only provide excellent performance but also completely eliminates the risk of short circuits, making it perfect for crucial applications. Both novice and experienced users will appreciate the fact that the paste is very easy to apply and to clean off.

Tailor-made for the cooling enthusiast, Chillaramic doesn't require a longer burn-in time and can be used with air, water and evaporative cooling systems. Last but not least, the paste comes in big 10g tubes which are sufficient for at least 30 applications on today's CPUs. So at a suggested retail price of EUR 6.90 / USD 8.90, one tube of Coolink Chillaramic will give you a lot of excellent paste at an excellent price!  

Now that the GeForce GTX 280 is out, you may be wondering what the alternative from AMD will be like. Well, for starters, it will have GDDR5, something the first GTX 280s don't. Quimonda, or was that Infineon? is more than ready to mass provide GDDR5 (Graphics Double Data Rate) memory modules. Other manufacturers like Hynix Semiconductor, or Samsung, will also jump onto that wagon, but it looks like having skipped GDDR4 entirely, in favour of GDDR5, gives Quimonda the edge, here.

The chips waiting to be produced are configured at 512 Mb and reach a speed of 4.5 GHz. This could translate, with a 512 bits memory bus, into a bandwidth of roughly 300 GB/s. Top of the line graphics cards form AMD/ATI are sure to benefit from the improvement, while nVidia should also join the fun (it's anyone's guess just how soon they will). It would actually be time for them to leave GDDR3, like ATI did (when they adopted GDDR4 in 2006).

After almost five years of GDDR3 rule (let's face it, GDDR4 was never a big deal), it's time for a new push in graphics memory performance that doesn't rely on the expensive bus trick. GDDR5 won't be cheap either, but in the long term prices will go down.

Link: X-bit labs.

Good days, if there ever were any, may be over for VIA. Their small sized platform, EPIA, will soon have a rival coming from no less than Intel itself.

The Atom processor doesn't come alone, it will do it accompanied by the i945G based chipset that will make their own Mini-ITX platform: Little Falls. Measuring only about 170mm x 170mm it will only have space for a single DDR2 memory slot and a couple of SATA ports. With an integrated graphics and a CPU that only requires 7.5W, in it's initial version, these systems will meet the demands for green computing.

We can expect products form ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI, at least. Let's hope they find their way down to the retail distribution channels; that would mean the market growing in that direction and better availability of VIA's EPIA than what we've seen in the past. Can you say "MacBook Air style barebones"?

Link: X-bit labs.

Without much fanfare, the new iteration of AMD's mobile platform was unveiled at Computex. There are few products built around it at this time, the ASUS F5Z and F8Tr laptops spring to mind, but after so much Montevina talk, AMD got ahead of Intel, even if it only was a couple of weeks before the chip giant launches their own mobile platform refresh.

Though Intel was to take the spotlight at Computex, with a strong Montevina showing, the "official" début (you never know what that means, nowadays) was supposed to take place somewhere and some place else.

As many will already suspect, the Turion Ultra it's nothing else than the commercial name for what it was previously known as the Puma platform; basically, a Griffin processor, a mobile version of the 780G (RS780M) and Mobility Radeon 3450, 3650 and 3850 graphics cards (for those than won't have enough with the integrated Mobility Radeon 3200).

Link: TG Daily.

Taipei, Taiwan, May 14th, 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc announced the successor to the previously smallest of all x86 systems, the EPIA PX10000.

The EPIA platforms continue to improve their power consumption characteristics, with the new VIA Eden ULV processor working at 500MHz. The total power the board will require it's not specified, but it mustn't be very high, because they opened a challenge to see how much it endures without a heatsink (the PX5000EG already looses the fan). After several weeks, they ended overheating the whole thing with a hair drier.

The new Pico-ITX integrates on a surface of 10 x 7.2cm as many components as: LVDS/DVI and VGA support , 5.1 sound, Ethernet 100/10, IDE and S-ATA connectors, six USB and one COM port. It also includes the VIA UniChrome™ Pro II IGP 3D/2D with MPEG-2/-4 a WMV9 decoding capabilities.

Link: VIA.

Do good things come in small packages? Most ladies would say no unless you are packing a Little Big Disk Quadra 1TB portable hard drive from the Lacie stable. Amazingly the device fits in the palm of your hand and runs off USB 2.0 so no need for a clumsy power brick on your desktop. The Quadra uses two 500GB hard drives working in a RAID 0 configuration for maximum speed with the option for Raid 1 for data security. If USB 2.0 is too slow for you, it can shift data at a rate of 110MB/s using eSATA or up to 80MB/s using FireWire 800.

Hea is taken care of by use of a LaCie d2 heat sink design. Noise levels are kept to a minimum thanks to the lack of fans and effective sound insulation. LaCie claims the unit is up to 60% lighter than traditional external HDDs. 

Here's the blurb from Arnaud Prezelin, LaCie Product Manager for Creative Pro solutions.

"Powerful yet portable, the Little Big Disk Quadra is an essential tool for meeting a professional's mobile needs. While travelling, users no longer need to carry heavy devices and power cables to operate a high-capacity 1TB external hard drive."

This is an innovative and highly desireable product for your desktop and to have a sexy little unit like this will set you back some £400 here in the UK. Not cheap as you can pick up a couple of 1TB drives now for around £100 each but then you have the hassle of installing them, setting up raid, finding space in your case. To be honest we'd rather pay for the Quadra 1TB and have the freedom to take data on the move. Nice one Lacie!