IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 10/04/2009

Techconnect Review Round-up 10/4/09
Memory

- The Big X58 Triple Channel DDR3 Memory Roundup! 8 Mid-range Kits Tested @ Madshrimps

Storage

- Corsair P256 256GB MLC Solid State Drive @ Legit Reviews
- Patriot XPorter Magnum 64GB @ PureOC

Graphics cards

- Gigabyte GTS 250 1GB @ Neoseeker
- Sapphire Radeon 4870 Vapor-X 1GB @ FiringSquad

Enclosures & PSUs

- Cooler Master Storm Scout Mid-Tower case
@ Techgage
@ TheTechLounge
@ Bjorn3d
@ Modders-Inc
- In Win Matrix Micro-ATX Case @ Hi-Tech Reviews
- GMC X7 X-Station Gaming Case @ OCModShop

Displays

- Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ @ X-bit labs

Cooling and modding

- OCZ Gladiator MAX CPU cooler @ Guru3D
- NZXT Cryo Laptop Cooling @ Pro-Clockers
- XIGMATEK Thor's Hammer CPU cooler @ X-bit labs
- Xigmatek Nepartak CPU Cooler @ DriverHeaven

Peripherals

- OCZ Eclipse & Behemoth Laser Gaming Mice @ techPowerUp
- Razer Mamba Gaming Mouse @ OC3D
- Logitech MX1100 Cordless Laser Mouse @ Phoronix

PCs

- iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F970 System @ HotHardware

Photo and video cameras

- Kodak EasyShare Z1285 12.1MP Digital Camera @ ThinkComputers

Other

- Rosewill RNX-N4 Wireless N Router @ HardwareLogic
- Creative Zen X-Fi @ InsideHW
- LaTosta Lightweight Laptop Stand @ Overclockers Club
- Sony Ericsson W705 and OKI MC860dn Workgroup MFP @ TrustedReviews

Lian Li unveils the Armorsuit PC-P50 mid-tower chassis
Wrapping up the work week, Lian Li has sent out a press release detailing a new Armorsuit series gaming case, the PC-P50. Made out of aluminum and painted black, the chassis measures 210 (W) x 495 (H) x 490 (D) mm and features nine external 5.25-inch bays, an anti-vibration movable HDD cage, with each drive having its own bracket, tool-less installation for the optical drive, PCI cards and PSU bracket, and a top-placed I/O panel with two audio and two USB ports.

The PC-P50 comes with two holes for the tubing of watercooling kits and has four pre-installed fans - two (front and rear) 120mm fans working at 1200 RPM, and two 140mm spinners @ 1000 RPM located on the top panel.

The Armorsuit PC-P50 will start shipping at the end of May and will be available in two versions - a 'regular' one priced at $170 (without VAT), and an AMD themed model going for $240 (also without VAT).

Chaintech intros Apogee-branded DDR2 netbook memory
Walton Chaintech has now unveiled the latest addition to its memory line-up, Apogee-branded DDR2-667/800 SODIMMs aimed specifically at netbooks. Coming in 1 and 2GB capacities, the modules feature DRAM chips manufactured using the 65nm process technology, work at 667 or 800 MHz with 5-5-5-15 timings and require 1.6V, some 12% less power than standard DDR2 memory.

Currently unpriced, the netbook-prone DDR2 modules will be offered with a lifetime warranty.

TSMC sees small recovery as March sales increase
As predicted a while back, thanks to some rushed orders from customers, especially from the mainland Chinese market, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was able to enjoy a not so unpleasant March. While the global economic crisis still took its toll, TSMC saw its March sales reach about NT$13.62 billion or almost $400 million, up 18.4% compared to February. Unfortunately, compared to March 2008, sales were down 48.7%.

Overall, in the first quarter of 2009, TSMC's revenue topped NT$37.56 billion ($1.1 billion), down 55.9% compared to the same period last year.

HWiNFO32 v2.39 up for grabs
REALiX Corp has this week released a new version of its freeware system information tool HWiNFO32. The v2.39 update includes the following:

- Fixed recognition of VIA Nano.
- Added preliminary Ironlake GMA support.
- Improved multiple SMBus Host support.
- Improved nVidia MCP79/7A support.
- Updated branding of AMD NPT and K10 families. Added several new models.
- Added ATI Radeon HD 4890 (RV790).
- Added support of Fintek F71862F, F71882F and F71889F sensors.
- Added nVidia GeForce 9600 GT Green Edition and GeForce GTX 275.
- Added support of Intel S5500BC, S5520SC, S5520UR, MSI MS-9161, ASUS KFN4-D16, P5M2, P5MT, INVENTEC IR2500 SMBus SPD Muxes.
- Several other minor updates and bugfixes.

To download HWiNFO32 v2.39 visit this page.

Intel shows off Larrabee wafer in Beijing
This week, at the IDF (Intel Developer Forum) Spring 2009 in Beijing, Pat Gelsinger, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group took the stake to talk about the Nehalem architecture and its desktop, server platforms, the new Xeon 5500 processors, 32nm Westmere chips, and, last but not least, Larrabee. The first product based on a many-core architecture, Larrabee is Intel's foray into the discrete graphics market and thus a threat to both AMD and Nvidia.

Although still not revealing things like frequencies, memory support and such, Gelsinger has stated that the first Larrabee-powered graphics cards will become available either late this year or in early 2010. Moreover, Gelsinger said that Intel is testing Larrabee silicon and has even showcased a 300mm wafer containing Larrabee chips. As seen below, the many-core approach requires a lot of transistors, with the die size of the Larrabee chip being quite large, possibly larger than any of today's GPUs. The manufacturing process used for Larrabee will likely be 45nm at first but Intel is kicking off 32nm production this year so 2010 may see the chip moving to 32nm. Now if only we had some performance numbers.

Photo courtesy of Hardware.fr.

Sony and YouTube mulling full-length movie deal
As confirmed by Sony Pictures spokeswoman Paula Askanas, Sony and YouTube are currently having discussions about a possible partnership that would enable the Google-owned video sharing site to host full movies from Sony's catalogue. While both companies aren't providing details about the talks rumors have it that the potential deal would see Sony being the first studio to stream full-length, ad-supported movies through YouTube, currently the most popular video site out there.

Sony is now providing about 60 older films on Crackle.com so, for its YouTube deal, it may be offering the same titles, at least for starters. Stay tuned for more on the YouTube/Sony negotiations.

Kingmax to deliver 16GB Super Stick mini flash drive
Kingmax has now announced the addition of a new model to its Super Stick mini family of compact flash drives. Coming with 16GB worth of storage space, the drive measures 31.5 x 12 x 2 mm, has a USB 2.0/1.1 interface, is Plug & Play compatible and even waterproof, pressure resistant.

The RoHS-compliant and Halogen free 16GB Super Stick mini should hit the stores soon and will be offered with a lifetime.

Digg Search gets major update
Well-known content sharing website Digg.com now boasts a fresh search feature that's supposed to suck a lot less than the old one. According to a post made on the Digg blog, the, the "new and improved" Search features:

- A faceted model for filtering results enabling people to cut results by factors like Digg count, topic, time, etc.
- Advanced shortcuts that allow people who are looking for stories with specific promotion characteristics to filter effectively.
- Common search tricks like putting the query in quotes for an exact match and adding a negative sign before the term (i.e., -term) to remove that term from theresults - now work.
- A graph showing the relative number of search results by month for the past several years gives some visibility into the trend of a particular query term over time.
- Searching for stories from a particular domain is much more effective.
- New RSS feeds are much more useful thanks to the added faceting capabilities.
- Improved speed.

Digg Search is accessible at digg.com/search.

Yahoo Mail suffers short outage
Since Gmail had its fair share of outages these last few month, yesterday it was Yahoo Mail's turn to take an unwanted break. According to Yahoo, an issue kept some 0.5% of its email service users from accessing their virtual inboxes for less than 20 minutes.

Fortunately, the problem was fixed quickly, with no notable damage being done, just a few scares here and there to prove that not even Yahoo Mail is outage-free.

Friday, April 10, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 10/04/2009

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