The Ultimate CPU Round-up: Summer 2010
Do you remember the times when CPUs were chosen based on whether you were assembling a gaming PC, in which case you'd opt for cheaper Celerons and Durons, or a heavy workload PC, in which case you'd buy the more expensive Pentiums and Athlons? It came to our mind on multiple occasions during this test. Those days of single-core CPUs, when Megahertz were the only relevant thing, and the difference between home and professional models consisted in the difference in the quantity of cache memory, only served to underline the problems that modern-day users are facing when assembling a new PC. Is a tri-core CPU enough for current games, or should one go for a quad-core? Will the L3 cache play any role in game performance, or is an ordinary Athlon II enough? A weaker Core i7 and a cheaper P55/H55 motherboard, or a stronger one and an expensive X58 mobo? Who gives more bang for buck, Intel or AMD? Questions are many, responses come down to less-than-clear PC forum experts, and the buyer often feels underachieving, as if it were only a question of a few additional euros to build a significantly better PC. It came to a point where we considered indispensable to try and find everything we possibly could in the CPU department from dealers and retailers, and make them cross swords in the most common PC tasks.
Read More ...
IFA 2010: The New Look of Acer Laptops
Acer prepared several new laptop models for IFA Berlin, and made a little bit of design changes. Myself personally like the looks on old ones better, but the taste has always been a tricky topic. There are some pictures so that you can judge for yourself. E-books reader called Lumi Read is not yet done, but there are some nice features that this model packs. There are two models, and one of them has a SIM slot, so that you can use 3G access whenever you need it, and when you can, there is Wi-Fi module which lets you not only to buy books online, but to browse trough websites. Black and white and with no flash support, but it works, and looks good. The pricing is around 200 € for the one without and 250 € for the one with 3G.
Read More ...
Chrome 6 released
Google has celebrated Chrome's second birthday this week by launching Chrome 6 for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. The search giant introduced the browser on September 2nd, 2008, and Chrome 6 is now placed in Google's stable channel. What is really important is that Chrome 6 is three times faster at parsing JavaScript than Chrome 1.
Read More ...
IFA 2010: Lots of Goodies at VerbatimÂ’s
As every year, Verbatim stand is filled with goodies, and this year is no different. Clip-It is their highlight amongst new products. It is a little USB flash drive much like the small ones we carry around on our key chains, but this one is a bit different, it has a clip on it, so you can clip it on your shirt, pocket, strap or a notebook. It comes in different colors, and in 2 or 4 GB version, with a reasonable price and it looks like a nice and promising product.
Read More ...
IFA 2010: Nvidia Fermi in Notebooks
Although the day two of IFA 2010 fair was the first time Nvidia allowed manufactures of notebooks to show their models with new Fermi-based discrete graphic solution, here on IFA you might have just played on notebook with Fermi without even knowing it. Is it Nvidia the one keeping this „under radar“, or the manufactures are not satisfied with the performance? We saw only several models with GT 425M and GT 420M: Acer, MSI and Samsung. These GPUs are implemented in their new series, and some of them support 3D Vision so you can play games in 3D environment. Behind the curtains, we saw the new Acer Aspire models with Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs and with GT 425M and GT 420M. The model with Core i5 and GT 420M has Nvidia Optimus and switchable graphic solution. We took an advantage of the opportunity and installed Alien Versus Predator D3D11 Benchmark, and ran it on the faster machine (Core i7 620M and GT 425M). The results are:
Read More ...
IFA 2010: The Showstoppers Event
On almost all ITC fairs we are visiting, one of the events we are looking forward to every time is the Showstoppers. The concept is easy: you put journalists, company representatives and their new products in same room and something will happen. Sennheiser was our first stop, and we were very surprised to see that they entered market of gaming headsets. There were four new Gaming Headphones on the display, PC 360 G4ME and PC 333 G4ME gathering most attention. Both headsets looked very much gaming oriented, but we liked a bit more classic style of 360 model. Price for the highest end model was very much in line with mid-range models from HD series, but they should differentiate themselves with hardware Dolby Surround 7.1 support.
Read More ...
Apple not lowering notebook orders
According to a Digitimes report, Apple appears to be the only company immune from a falloff in notebook shipments for the month of July. HP is said to be the hardest hit, with notebook shipments expected to reach only 39.5 million units by the end of the year. The company had set a goal of 45-47 million units. The report echoes a recent investor note, published by UBS analyst Maynard Um, that pointed to slow sales in most retail outlets. The only heavy traffic was seen at Apple Stores as students sought Macs for the school season.
Read More ...
Nvidia releases GeForce GT 420 for OEMs
In addition to the full lineup of mobile Geforce 400M GPUs, Nvidia has listed the Geforce GT 420 as well, without any special announcement. Based on a 40nm GPU, possibly the GF108, the Geforce GT 420 can be considered to be the first low-end Fermi derived card with support for DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4. The new Geforce GT 420 card will not be available in retail, at least not for now, as this is solely a OEM only card.
Read More ...
IFA 2010: Logitech Gaming Sets and Headphones
One of the highlights of Logitech booth at this year IFA was a gaming set composed of G930 headset, G700 mouse and G510 keyboard. Introduced last month, new gaming devices bring nice upgrade to previous series. Headset supports 7.1 Dolby surround sound and wireless connectivity, with battery life up to 10h. In line with wireless philosophy, new gaming mouse is also wireless, but due 1000 reports per second it should have same filling as wired one. If you are still not convinced, you can attach it to PC via USB cable and use it as a standard corded mouse. G510 keyboard brings just two really new things, color display and audio jack for headphones. One more thing is big scroll wheel more commonly seen on office keyboards.
Read More ...
No comments:
Post a Comment