IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 22/07/2009

Club 3D reveals new, custom-cooled Radeon HD 4890
Club 3D, a name we don't hear enough about, has now taken the spotlight to announce, no, not a hot 40nm DirectX11 card, but a custom Radeon HD 4890. Seen below, the new RV790-powered card features a dual-slot cooler that's supposed to deliver high performance while keeping the sound output low, DirectX 10.1 and CrossFireX support, 800 Stream Processors, a 256-bit memory interface, and two DVI connectors.

Unfortunately, despite the 'updated' cooling system, the Radeon HD 4890 is all-stock and has its GPU set to 850 MHz, and the 1024MB of GDDR5 memory @ 3900 MHz. This card is already shipping to stores and should be found at about 170 Euro.

Seagate reports another quarterly loss
To its shame and Western Digital's joy, Seagate, the world's largest hard drive manufacturer, has had to deal with yet another quarterly loss, one of $81 million for the period ended July 3rd (Q4 of fiscal year 2009). Despite the loss, Seagate can find a silver lining in its higher drive shipments - 40.6 million units, and higher revenue - $2.35 billion, compared to the previous quarter.

"The overall organizational, operational, technical and product progress we have made during the last six months is reflected in our financial results for the June quarter and demonstrates meaningful progress toward the goal of returning to sustained GAAP profitability as soon as possible," said Steve Luczo, Seagate CEO. "We are also seeing signs that the storage markets are improving and are providing better visibility into the demand environment. Our approach to the September quarter with respect to our production volumes and product mix is to continue to manage our factories with an intense focus on maximizing our return on invested capital while satisfying our customersأ¢آ€آ™ requirements."

For the whole 2009 fiscal year Seagate reported hard drive shipments of 163.8 million units, a revenue of $9.8 billion, and a massive $3.1 billion net loss. Leaving the past behind though, Seagate has looked into its crystal platter and predicted a revenue for the current quarter between $2.4 - $2.6 billion but didn't say much about potentially getting back to making a profit.

Enermax intros the Staray mid-tower chassis
Enermax has now presented the Staray, a fresh PC case which comes equipped with a shiny, new and colorful Appolish fan. Measuring 450 (D) x 185 (W) x 411 (H) mm, the Staray is painted black, has four exposed 5.25-inch bays, a front I/O panel with two audio and two USB ports, and provides tool-free installation for optical and hard drives.

The case also has pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubes, and two 120mm fans - one at the back, and a blue or red-colored Appolish at the front. The Staray has now started shipping and has a recommended price tag of 49.90 Euro.

Biostar announces its own AMD 785G motherboard
Beating the launch rush, Biostar has now revealed the TA785GE 128M, a microATX AMD 785G-powered motherboard. Seen below, the colorful new T-series board has support for AM2/AM2+ processors, and features a 4+1-phase VRM design, four DDR2 memory slots, one PCI-Express x16 slot, and Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics backed by 128MB SidePort memory, and Hybrid CrossFireX-readiness.

The TA785GE 128M also comes with six SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 5.1 channel audio, and D-Sub, DVI, plus HDMI outputs. The motherboard should become available in August.

Picture courtesy of VR-Zone.

A-Data readies 16GB Class 10 SDHC memory card
A-Data has now announced a new member of its Turbo series of memory cards, a 16GB SDHC bearing a Class 10 speed rating. Aimed to be used with the newest DSLR cameras, this upcoming 16GB card is able to deliver transfer (read/write) speeds of 22 MB/s, which isn't as fast as SanDisk's Extreme 32GB SDHC, but is still enough for most situations.

A-Data is expected to start shipping the Class 10 16GB SDHC card, which is backed by a lifetime warranty by the way, very soon so keep an eye out for it if you need a speedy memory card.

Corsair's Dominator GT memory kits making a comeback
Pulled off shelves earlier this month due to an issue with Elpida's Hyper DRAMs, Corsair'd top of the line Dominator GT DDR3 memory kits is now scheduled to get back on sale within a week or two.

"The issue with the Hyper RAMs was discovered with the help of the enthusiast community, and we worked closely with them to solve it," said John Beekley, VP of Applications Engineering at Corsair. "Our lab was able to correlate the failures to specific batches of early material, we worked very closely with Elpida to determine the root cause of the issue and to define the associated corrective actions to take. We are confident that every GT module using the Elpida Hyper IC Corsair ships from today will meet our strict quality and reliability standard."

Equipped with updated chips, the 'new and improved' Dominator GT comes in four configurations:

- CMG6GX3M3A2000C7 - 6GB (2GB x 3) kit | 2000 MHz | 7-7-7-20 |
- CMG6GX3M3A2000C8 - 6GB (2GB x 3) kit | 2000 MHz | 8-8-8-24 |
- CMG6GX3M3A1866C7 - 6GB (2GB x 3) kit | 1866 MHz | 7-7-7-20 |
- CMG4GX3M2A1600C6 - 4GB (2GB x 2) kit | 1600 MHz | 6-6-6-18 |

The Dominator GT kits are bundled with the Corsair Airflow fan and are backed by a lifetime warranty.

Google Wave to enter cvasi public beta on September 30th
Since its announcement in May, Google Wave, the one-stop online communication and collaboration tool, has sparked the interest of thousands of developers, with 6,000 dev accounts already made and another 20,000 requests being processed, but for a project like this, even more testers/users are needed. In that note Google has revealed a plan to extend Google Wave availability beyond developers starting from September 30th.

In the upcoming wannabe beta stage Google will add some 100,000 people to Wave's user base, but until that launches, it will continue working away on improving the speed, stability and usability of the tool, and expanding its APIs. If you want to be up-to-date with the future Google Wave moves be sure to sign up here.

New Maxflash family of flash drives coming up
Memorysolution has just revealed that is preparing to release a trio of Plug & Play, 'high speed' Maxflash USB drives. The new 16, 32 and 64GB flash drives measure 73 x 27 x 9 mm, weight just over 15 grams, and deliver read and write speeds of up to 30 MB/s and 20 MB/s, respectively.

Memorysolution has yet to reveal the drives' prices.

Klipsch unveils the Image S4i headset with integrated mic, remote
With Apple's blessing, Klipsch has announced the upcoming release of the Image S4i, a new in-ear headset that includes an in-line microphone and remote, and is thus compatible with the third generation iPod shuffle's Voiceover feature and the iPhone 3GS' Voice Control app.

Seen below with its piano black finish and chrome accents, the the Image S4i has a three-button remote system, a microphone with echo cancellation, oval ear tips that provide comfortable long-term wear, a 3.5mm jack for (almost) all-round connection, two 8.5 mm drivers, and features a frequency responce of 10Hz to 19kHz and a sensitivity of 110dB SPL/mW.

"Designed for iPhone and iPod users, the Image S4i is a breakthrough product that simplifies on-the-go lifestyles - you can take calls while commuting or exercising, as well as control your music library," said Don Inmon, Klipsch director of marketing and product development for personal audio.

The Image S4i headset is backed by a two-year warranty, is bundled with a 'premium' carrying pouch, and should hit stores next month with a price tag of about $100.

AMD officially intros the Athlon II X2 245 and 240
Sunnyvale-based Intel arch-rival, AMD has now added a couple more AM3 processors to its line-up, the dual-core Athlon II X2 245 and 240. Manufactured on 45nm, the 2.90 GHz X2 245 and 2.80 GHz X2 240 have 2MB of L2 cache, an integrated dual channel DDR2/DDR3 memory controller, a HT bus set at 4000 MHz, and a TDP of 65W.

The two CPUs are expected to hit stores in the very near future and cost under $67.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 22/07/2009

No comments: