IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (Elite Bastards) 04/03/2010

Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue review

It's taken them quite a while, but Western Digital are finally entering the Solid State Drive market, albeit with a focus towards the high-end consumer.آ Will it be an impressive fashionably late entry for the storage giant, or a case of too little too late?

Given the $529 MSRP on the 128GB SiliconEdge Blue, thereâ€™s certainly nothing mainstream about the price. Although Western Digital did tell me that the price was purely a suggestion and it expects significantly lower prices from etailers. Even if WD can deliver Kingston-like pricing, weâ€™re still talking about a drive that sells for over $2 per Gigabyte of storage space. It may be mainstream for an SSD, just not for the majority of PC buyers.

Instead, what WD refers to when it calls the SiliconEdge Blue a mainstream drive is its compatibility. When Western Digital set out to build the SiliconEdge Blue, the focus was on compatibility and reliability. Western Digital wanted to build a drive that users could buy and pop in any system without worries of having to update firmware or the drive just not working. There are still systems today that donâ€™t play well with SSDs, often exposing weaknesses either in the HBA (Host Bus Adapter) or in the SSD itself. Most machines are used to dealing with slow hard drives. Installing a drive that has an order of magnitude greater performance is sure to push the limits of any spec. Weâ€™ve seen that crop up in more than one case, the most public and unresolved being the use of certain 3rd party SSDs in Appleâ€™s latest MacBook Pros.

Anandtech has the full review of the SiliconEdge Blue, while Hot Hardware and PC Perspective also have coverage.

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AMD plans to launch five six-core desktop CPUs

While Intel's initial "Gulftown" six-core CPU launch will only make itself available to enthusiast users willing to fork out for an Extreme Edition part, it appears that AMD's plans for their own six-core "Thuban" range are rather different, with a roadmap which includes as many as five different CPUs at varying price points slated for launch during 2010.

Unlike its arch-rival Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices plans to launch a rather broad family of six-core central processing units (CPUs) for desktops, sources familiar with the companyâ€™s plans told X-bit labs. At present there are at least five code-named Thuban chips are planned for the launch this year.

In the second quarter of 2010 the worldâ€™s second largest maker of chips plans to release four AMD Phenom II X6 processors: 1035T with 95W thermal design power (TDP), 1055T with 95W TDP, 1055T with 125W power envelope as well as 1075T with 125W TDP. In the third quarter of the year AMD will speed up the Thuban lineup with a new model (10xxT) and if the things go well, the company may even consider adding sixth chip into the family sometime in Q4 2010.

X-Bit Labs have the full story.

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CeBIT 2010 - Day One coverage

Yesterday was the first day proper of the CeBIT 2010 show in Hannover, so what were amongst the goodies on display at the event?آ Hardware Heaven takes a look at some of the big name booths and what they held within.

Nvidiaâ€™s ultra-secure location provided us with probably the most interesting meeting of the day. In one room they had a GTX 480 SLI system up and running, connected to 3 1080p screens powering Need For Speed Shift (in 3D). Next door, a similar system was running Bad Company 2 on the same display configuration. In a third room were numerous boxes running single GTX 480 cards. We are glad to report that the room was not burning down and that it didnâ€™t sound like a wind tunnel which is great... as for the various tech demos on show, each was impressive in its own way. Hair effects on the GTX 480 are significantly ahead of anything we have seen before. The level of detail in PhysX explosions such as the collapsing bridge was also highly impressive.

As for the cards themselves, we are not allowed to show any images today but we will say that reports of massive or loud cooling solutions are well off the mark.

Read their full round up of the first day right here.

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NVIDIA GeForce/ION driver 196.75 WHQL released

If you're an NVIDIA graphics board user, the company has just released a new set of WHQL drivers for your use and enjoyment.آ Here's what's new this time around.

New in Version 196.75

Adds support for Next Generation ION.

Adds support for GeForce GT 320, GeForce GT 330, and GeForce GT 340.

Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0129.

Upgrades HD Audio driver to version 1.0.9.1 (for supported GPUs).

Increases performance in several PC games from v196.21 WHQL. The following are examples of measured improvements. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU

Up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology

Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU

Up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology

Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU

Up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology

Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for top new gaming titles including Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver.

Enhanced SLI support for World of Warcraft and Unigine.

Adds Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Need for Speed: Shift, Resident Evil 5, RUSE, and Street Fighter IV.

Adds override anti-aliasing support for Mass Effect 2.

Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.

Download GeForce/ION driver 196.75 WHQL for Windows Vista/7 (32-bit)
Download GeForce/ION driver 196.75 WHQL for Windows Vista/7 (64-bit)

Download GeForce/ION driver 196.75 WHQL for Windows XP Home/Professional
Download GeForce/ION driver 196.75 WHQL for Windows XP Professional x64

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Naked Fermi: GTX 480

A Dutch website, named Tweakers.net, has gathered some pictures of the new nVidia Fermi equiped GTX 480 board without it's HSF on. *blush*

Tweakers.net received during the Cebit the possibility some pictures of a GTX 480. The video card is Nvidia still jealously protected, but nevertheless Tweakers.net managed to shoot a few pictures.

Get a look at the card and chips along with a Google translation here.

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Thursday, March 4, 2010

IT News HeadLines (Elite Bastards) 04/03/2010

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