AMD VP claims no price war, forgets it started it

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 1, 2009 - 03:19 PM | Ryan Shrout
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This is kind of an odd little article over at The Inquirer: an AMD Senior Vice President, Rick Bergman, claims that they "WILL NOT engage Nvidia in a price slashing war."  Uhhh, maybe I am dreaming, but I think that war is already on and in fact it was AMD that started it.

Hulu pulps Joost

Subject: General Tech | July 1, 2009 - 03:10 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Relative newcomer to the streaming content business Hulu has displaced Joost in the hearts of internet users as the favourite way to grab
online TV series and movies.  The original concept of Joost might have been a bit too broad, using bittorrent to distribute the content was certainly a great idea, but their concept of content was so broad they never managed to find a core group of users to depend upon to spread the good word.  Switching to a browser model put them in direct competition with Hulu, a content provider that does have a huge amount of users preaching the gospel of Hu

NVIDIA at risk of losing the Apple deal

Subject: Mobile | July 1, 2009 - 02:55 PM | Ryan Shrout
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While this shouldn't really come as a big surprise to anyone that pays attention to these sorts of things, a post over at Semiaccurate is saying that in all likely hood NVIDIA is "being shown the door" when it comes to future Apple system designs. 

Everything you'll need but for the 2TB of storage

Subject: Motherboards | June 30, 2009 - 05:21 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The ZOTAC IONITX-A-U Atom N330 WiFi N
is a little different than most motherboards, in that it comes with Atom N330 CPU attached along with an onboard 9400M GPU all on a Mini-ITX board that supports up to 4GB of DDR2-800.  Thanks to nVIDIA's 9400M it is capable of displaying Blu-Ray content up to 1920x1440 at 75MHz on an external HDMI display.  If you are looking for a great base to build an HTPC off of, you could do much worse that this bo

The best ways to beat the summer heat

Subject: Cases and Cooling | June 30, 2009 - 02:51 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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FrostyTech has just finished updating their misleadingly named Top 5 cooler list.  There are not 5 coolers on the list, in total there are 40 representing the best of the air cooling solutions currently available.  As some heatsinks are not compatible with both AMD and Intel, the lists are split into two rankings.  As well there is a Top 10 list for both the best in controlling temperatures and a Top 10 list of the quietest coolers.  More than enough coolers to make your choices for cooling that system in

Get buffed

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 30, 2009 - 02:01 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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AnandTech delves into the mysterious world of graphics buffering in this article.  Not anisotropic filtering as is commonly discussed; instead they are looking at the difference between double buffering plus vsync
versus triple buffering.  Using a clip of a horse running you can see the speed advantage that disabling vsync while using double buffering and the penalty you pay for that gain.  That same clip is used to illustrate how triple buffering can offer you the best of both worlds.  Head

A very unique processor

Subject: Processors | June 30, 2009 - 01:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The AMD Phenom II 42 TWKR Black Edition does not have a native frequency, simply a default of 2GHz if you pop it in without changing anything in the BIOS.  It is a limited edition run specifically designed to be overclocked, hence the tweaker portion of its name.  So far Legit Reviews has the top overclock, 6.58GHz on LN and a bus speed of 209MHz.  As an added bonus, the testing ended once something horrible happened to the motherboard, you can see a picture on the last page of the review.

I wonder what the PageRanks of these sites are

Subject: General Tech | June 30, 2009 - 12:26 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Drop by Wired for a look at some interesting search sites that are neither Google nor that new one from Microsoft.  Some are simply a different twist, such as Good Search which donates money every time you search to ChaCha which is much faster than Google on a mobile device.  Others are more specific, like IceRocket, OneRiot, Scoopler
and Collecta all of which search Twitter, blog posts and news stories.  For the traveller there is Voyij and for the commuter Parkingspots.com will probably be a favourite. 

Blame the hardware; not the program

Subject: General Tech | June 29, 2009 - 05:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Tom Clancy's HAWX seems to be showing up in a lot of bundles, from graphics cards to joysticks.  Perhaps they are hinting that with better hardware you will enjoy the game more.  Think Computers, not usually into flight sims, decided that that bundleware would be the perfect way to test out the Thrustmaster T.16000M joystick.  For the price of a usual game, you get a joystick with some serious stats as well as the game its self,

One size fits all?

Subject: Mobile | June 29, 2009 - 03:31 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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On paper, the Cooler Master SNA 95 Slim Notebook Adapter sounds like a brilliant idea.  A 95W power adaptor with 8 different plugs and a USB socket on the side that can provide a variety of Wattage and Amperage to charge all your USB and mobile devices, including phones.  Unfortunately, the model shipped to Tweaknews for testing had some incompatibilities, some that could be overcome and others that could not.  Along with the problems they had, they were also disappointed that there was no pricing information. 

The mysterious Samsung ION notebook

Subject: Mobile | June 29, 2009 - 02:53 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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We know very little about the Samsung ION notebook, apart from the fact that it could be a serious help to nVIDIA getting the ION platform recognition as a competitor to the Intel-made chipset for Atom, even with the sales incentives that Intel offers.

• Model name - unknown

• Specs - nVIDIA ION processor

• Pricing - unknown

• ETA - sometime soon

A bit better than a double sided floppy

Subject: Storage | June 29, 2009 - 02:38 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Now that Blu-Ray burners and re-writers are sitting near the $200 mark, the DVD seems to be on its way to extinction.  It is not just the sheer size of storage on this optical media, the disks themselves are much more resistant to scratching and a rewriteable disk will not become useless after just a few uses.  Even more attractive than the first generation of disks are the new single and dual-layer BluRay discs;

OCZ presents the PCP&C UPS

Subject: Cases and Cooling | June 29, 2009 - 12:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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PC Power & Cooling has expanded its lineup into UPSs with the Pro-Source 1500.  As you might expect this is a pure sine wave UPS, and it provides up to 12 minutes of backup power at a 600W.  Bjorn3D thought this was a perfect time to hook up an insanely powerful PC to see just how this UPS performed.  They took a Corei7 965 running at 3.74 GHz and three GTX-285's all with a 50MHz GPU overclock for a gran

This side up

Subject: General Tech | June 29, 2009 - 12:32 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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We have been seeing demos of Microsoft Surface at most trade shows for the past while.  Microsoft is rightly proud of this new multi-touch interface; they've come up with a complete replacement for the mouse and keyboard.  This does present a lot of challenges when designing a GUI for the Surface if you intend to do more than just offer a virtual keyboard and mouse.  Ars Technica has an interview with a design team that is using Surface and goes over some of the obstacles

Five years without DOS support and it is still going strong

Subject: General Tech | June 26, 2009 - 06:53 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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To get the most important forum thread out of the way first, PC Perspective is giving away a Smooth Creations system.  You have 7 different ways to enter and Ryan has already disqualified Allyn, Josh and myself so you have no excuses not to enter and win even if you live in Outer Elbonia.  This machine is not just pretty on the outside inside you will find a Phenom X4 955, a pair of HD4890s, 4GB DDR2 on a Foxconn 790FX, and dual VelociRaptors, all

Stuck in a tight space?

Subject: Cases and Cooling | June 26, 2009 - 02:29 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Using an LGA775 or AM2 chip in a case that doesn't allow you to have a 6" tall cooler?  At only 47mm (1.8") tall, the Thermaltake MeOrb might be the perfect solution for you.  As it is so small, the cooling that it provides does not beat the big boys, it does however beat the stock cooler which is the important goal.  BCCHa

Does that colouring affect performance?

Subject: Motherboards | June 26, 2009 - 01:43 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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DFI's newest X58 boards is the DFI UT X58-T3eH8, packed with all the little extras that have earned DFI such a devoted following.  It is becoming difficult to stand out with extra features, most motherboard manufacturers are including a lot of them, such as power and reset buttons on the motherboard that can also clear the CMOS or much more efficient onboard cooling systems.  Perhaps one way that DFI distinguishes its self is that their p

Fatal1ty has competition

Subject: General Tech | June 26, 2009 - 12:22 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Monster Cable has been described in a lot of ways; bizarre, ridiculous, loony and just plain way too freakin' expensive. 
Perhaps that is why they picked Ludacris
to be their big name at launches.  This particular launch is for the Monster Turbine Headphones, in-ear buds that go for around $150, actually on the low end of the in-ear ma