The latest hardware news…
Straight out of Cupertino’s mouth, the MacBook Air is officially shipping. ‘Course, we’d already heard a few reports from early adopters that they had received shipment notifications, but now we can all rest assured they weren’t just dreaming. Brace yourselves, MBA pre-orderers, your wee machine should be on its way soon, but it seems as though folks placing their orders as late as today will still face a “2 to 3 week” lead time.
Today’s news from Dell shouldn’t come as any surprise for notebook gaming enthusiasts. Dell officially announced the availability of dual nVidia GeForce 8800M GTX video cards (2 x 512MB) with nVidia SLI for the XPS M1730 and XPS M1730 World of Warcraft edition notebooks.
Dell claims the XPS M1730 laptop configured with dual GeForce 8800M GTX is capable of producing a 3DMark06 score of up to a 13,500 3DMarks … a 49 percent improvement over dual nVidia Geforce 8700M GT SLI technology.
In short, this latest dual graphics card option delivers stunning performance even for demanding games like Crysis and BioShock.
While this might sound like bitter news for people who already purchased the XPS M1730, Dell has another surprise in store. Dell will offer a “graphics upgrade program” for customers with existing XPS M1730 and XPS M1730 World of Warcraft edition laptops!
New customers can configure the XPS M1730 with dual 512MB GeForce 8800M GTX cards for an additional $700. Details on the upgrade program will be available soon.
Of course, Dell is not the first notebook manufacturer to offer dual 8800M GTX video cards. Sager was first to the market with the release of the NP9262 with dual 8800M GTX cards last year.
Source: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4225
Forget the MacBook Air: those folks seeking the absolute lightest notebooks on the planet know that Windows machines are still the only way to go, and Toshiba has proven that once again with an official 3G upgrade to the already impressive Portege R500. According to Akihabara News (which seems to be a little confused concerning the model number here), two new 12.1-inch, HSDPA-equipped configurations will be available this month: the ultra-lightweight (and ultra-pricey) R500-11J, highlighted by a 64GB SSD drive and impressive 1.72-pound package, and the cheaper, optical drive-packing R500-11I, which features the same 1.20GHz U7600 CPU and 2GB of RAM, but introduces a less appealing 120GB HDD. Pricing should be around €2,500 ($3,658) for the high-end 11J and €2,050 ($3,000 even) for the heavier 11I.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/21/toshiba-adds-3g-to-the-featherweight-portege-r500/
Far Cry 2, that game coming to both PCs and 360/PS3, has spilled some gameplay beans to Edge in the most recent issue. And a game that sounded promising before just got a whole lot more interesting.
While video games often present a clean and polished atmosphere, Far Cry 2 presents a world that “isn’t this clean, sterile, digital representation of Africa.” Guns jam and wounds that are left untreated become fatal. As for leveling up your character, that plotline begins to sound a bit like Haze.
Early on, your character will become infect with malaria. Through the game, your weakened character will become stronger after encounters with medicine to treat said malaria. So far, so good.
But if your character loses access to said medicine, he begins to mutate into a viscous vomiting mutant—a plotline of chemical dependence not so thematically different from what we’ve seen of Haze. Hopefully this transformation is offered as a gameplay choice or risk/reward instead of simply a necessary linear path. But all in all, Far Cry 2 is sounding fairly enticing.
Source: http://kotaku.com/346559/far-cry-2-details-get-hazy
Sources at touch panel and related component makers have revealed that companies are currently having their products undergo sampling with Asustek Computer in bids to win orders for next-generation Asus Eee PC laptops and touch-screen notebooks, which are set to launch later this year, DigiTimes reports.
The second-generation of Eee PCs will support panel sizes of 8-, 9- and 10-inch. The 9-inch versions will feature a touch-panel. The touch-screen display is expected to add only under $15 to the manufacturing cost of the Eee PC reportedly.
The 9-inch touch panel-equipped Eee PCs will adopt four-wire resistive touch screen technology, according to DigiTimes’ sources.
The Asus Eee PC ultraportables are currently available with 7-inch displays and start at $300.
Source: http://laptoping.com/asus-eee-pc-touch-screen.html
Apple and Greenpeace haven’t exactly been the best of buds. However, MacWorld seems to have changed all that, at least for Greenpeace. In a statement issued on their US website, Greenpeace says the following:
“The MacBook Air is a strong entry in the race to build a green PC. As a mercury and arsenic free laptop it exceeds European Standards (RoHS directive exemptions) and raises the bar for the rest of the industry.”
Sure, the Greenies still had their nits to pick with the use of PVC and BFRs. Nevertheless, they did give a nod of approval in noting their reduced usage. Had Greenpeace’s statement not been laced with condescending phrases like, “It’s a big step for Steve,” the whole week might have ended with some herb being passed around the Kumbaya circle — ‘ere ‘ippie, gimme a ‘ug.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/18/huh-greenpeace-calls-the-macbook-air-a-winner/
Even though ATI CrossFire setups are at the top of the 3DMark05 and 06 charts, it’s time for NVIDIA to make its way to the throne. Finnish extreme legend Sampsa has managed to break the 3DMark03 world record and score 103,888 points using: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 @ 4706MHz cooled by a rotary cascade, EVGA, MSI & Leadtek GeForce 8800 Ultra @ 720/1760/1180MHz in 3-way SLI with custom SLI bridge, EVGA nForce680i SLI motherboard, 2x Kingston KHX6400D2ULK2/2G @ CL3-3-3-3 1T memory modules, Silverstone 1200W PSU, Windows Vista 32-bit and ForceWare 169.25 WHQL drivers. Unfortunately, the world record can not be published in the ORB, because 3Dmark03 doesn’t detect the QX6850 CPU, but we can still enjoy the screenshots.
Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?47699
THE GUYS AT Digitimes seem to have got a peep at some Intel roadmaps for its “Montevina” range to be introduced in June.
It has introduced further segments for the power usage of its microprocessors – a favourite Intel practice is to SKU-up its chips.
According to the report, it will introduce “S” products to the range of chips which are tagged as being “highly energy efficient”.
Details of the offerings are here, along with the suggestion that you’ll be able to buy quad core notebook chips in the third quarter of this year.
The new version of GPU Caps Viewer is available. Among the new features, there are new gpu-stress-test demos, the display of the gpu core temperature for NVIDIA/ATI and some new gpu codenames such as the G92. GPU Caps Viewer is a freeware utility that quickly describes the essential capabilities of your graphics card/GPU including GPU type, amount of VRAM , OpenGL API support level, OpenGL API extensions database and general system configuration, as well as a GPU-Stress-Test functionality (GPU-Burner).
Download
Foxconn is showing off its impressive new Quad CrossFire motherboard at CES, which features no less than 10 slots - four PCI-E 16x, four PCI-E 1x and two standard PCI. The motherboard also has a watercooled northbridge and southbridge. I’ll let the pictures say the rest.
Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?49147
