Asustek’s latest 15.4-inch entertainment notebook – the ASUS M50 with the Intel’s “Penryn” 45nm processor and NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS video card – is now available in the United States.
The M50 is offered as the Asus M50Sv-B1 model, featuring the Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 CPU at 2.1GHz and a HD DVD optical drive, and the M50Sv-A1 with the T9300 at 2.5GHz and a DVD burner. The both laptops come with the GeForce 9500M GS 512MB dedicated video card, which manages 15.4″ 1440-by-900 displays. There are also Dolby Home Theatre technology, Altec Lansing stereo speakers, 3GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive in the both models.
Asustek’s press release says the M50 notebook will be also available with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650 1GB graphics (M50Sa) and HD3470 with 256MB of video memory (M50Sr). According to the earlier report, some models will include up to one terabyte of hard drive space, provided by two Travelstar 5K500 500GB HDDs. In addition, the M50 will feature a Blu-ray optical drive and a built-in optional analog/digital TV tuner.
The ASUS M50Sv-B1 and M50Sv-A1 sport an integrated 802.11 a/g/n wireless module and a Bluetooth receiver. The M50 systems include Gigabit Ethernet and 56k modem connections, a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera, HDMI and VGA outputs, an eSATA/USB combo port, three standard USB ports, an 8-in-1 media card reader, Firewire port, and an infrared port for remote controller. There is no word on ExpressCard and PC Card slots in the specifications sheet.
Regarding security, the M50 provides a fingerprint reader, accompanied by the Trusted Platform Module.
The famous enthusiast overclocker k|ngp|n has got his hands on Nvidia’s 790i Ultra SLi chipset and a Geforce 9800GX2 card, both from EVGA, and as you have probably guessed by now, overclocked it sky high with a little help from some LN2 cooling.
The test system that he used consists of EVGA’s 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, a single EVGA Geforce 9800GX2 reference cooled card, Corsair Dominator 1800 CL7 memory, a Yorkfield Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-core processor, Corsair’s HX1000W and Silverstone 850W Zeus PSUs.
As would any other overclocking enthusiast do, k|ngp|n decided to put his own LN2 pots on this new graphics card to see how far could it go on LN2. The results are stunning, from 754MHz and 3DMark06 score of 24,793, which he managed to get the card with reference cooling to 945MHz and 29,970 when LN2 got into the game. The final clocks when cooled by LN2 are 949MHz for the core, 1,129MHz for the memory and, this is not a typo, 2,389MHz for the Shaders.
We are sure that he will be able to go over the 30k result pretty soon. K|ngp|n is promising Quad-SLI results this week. You can check out the screenshots here.
The first official announcements of Nvidia’s 9800GX2 card are out. The first partners to announce it are Sparkle, Inno3D and Albatron.
Nothing special to report here, since these are the cards which we were able to see during CeBIT, some on display and some of them were privately showcased. All three partners have announced reference cooled and reference clocked cards, so all three are working at 600MHz for the core, 1000MHz for 1GB of GDDR3 (512MB for each GPU) and 1500MHz for Shaders.
The only OCed cards that we know about are EVGA’s water-cooled 9800GX2, the one with Innovatek water-block, and we know that MSI might do a card that will work at 650MHz for the core. These factory overclocked cards will probably come a bit later, and for now we have to look at the same reference clocked cards, at least the stickers are different. Read the rest of this entry »
Intel calls Larrabee a complete platform powered by a very capable microprocessor powered by an architecture that can cope with a large set of data. The last very important task will be to show the results on the screen, and this last bit will actually make Larrabee a graphics card.
Intel wants to build the processor and we will call it Larrabee for the time being. It can solve some nasty computational problems and display them, and at the same time it should be called a graphics chip.
We cannot get away from a feeling that Larrabee looks like a multiple IA core multi CPU with a special function input and output part that can help it cope with graphics. Therefore, Larrabee is a CPU powered with better Vector functions and wider SIMD instruction that hopes to conquer the graphics world.
We are still not convinced. I wonder if today’s announcement is orchestrated to shadow the Geforce 9800 GX2 launch; we wonder what Nvidia thinks about it?
Clearly not wanting to lose its status as the most reliable purveyor of nasty gaming rigs, Alienware has re-upped its infamous Area-51 desktops with NVIDIA’s latest graphics champ (the GeForce 9800 GX2) and the company’s burning hot nForce 790i mobo. Or so we’re told in a thrilling press release. The bottom line is this, you can now drop major bank on a seriously up-to-date system that will have friends and foes alike drooling, plotting your murder, or (at the very least) asking to get their game on. Truck over to the site to see the myriad configurations available… but you might want to hide your credit cards first.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/18/alienware-adds-the-nvidia-geforce-9800-gx2-nforce-790i-to-its-a/
BFG Technologies announced today the BFG Trade Up program. The program is designed to give customers a one time opportunity to exchange their current BFG graphics card within 100 days of the original date of purchase for a better model and only pay the difference in price, plus applicable taxes.
“As industry innovators of 24/7/365 technical support and the graphics card lifetime warranty, the BFG Trade Up program further demonstrates our continued commitment to provide value-added products and services that extend our customer’s technology investment,” said John Malley, senior director of marketing for BFG Technologies. “Newer, faster graphics cards are always being introduced into the market. Knowing that the BFG Trade Up program is available, customers can confidently purchase a BFG graphics card today knowing that their investment will be protected when newer graphics cards are launched soon after. The BFG Trade Up program will also provide customers an opportunity to upgrade to a model more suited to their performance needs.”
The BFG Trade Up program applies to all BFG graphics cards released after February 21, 2008. This includes all BFG graphics cards released by the company after this date including all BFG NVIDIA GeForce 9-series products. While the program is currently only available to U.S. and Canadian customers, BFG will offer the program in other countries as becomes feasible to do so.
Infinity Ward community manager, Robert Bowling, has confirmed that downloadable content for Call of Duty 4 will be available this spring. The first map, Chinatown, is based on the Call of Duty 2 map, Carentan. It is a rain soaked, dark map that is illuminated only by the moon and the soft neon glow of signs. The other maps include a wide-open village ravaged by combat called Creek, an enemy communications building named Broadcast and a desolate training warehouse filled with a variety of building mock-ups, labelled Killhouse. Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on whether PC users can expect to see the content in the near future.
Your 64GB SSD getting you down? Right, you should be so lucky. Regardless, Toshiba just updated their 12.1-inch Dynabook SS RX1 in Japan with a new 128GB SSD option. Build RX1/TAE bundles 128GB of solid state disk with internal, KDDI EV-DO data module, 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600 processor, 2GB of memory, Intel 945GMS Express graphics, a 1,280 x 800 pixel panel resolution, and choice of 6.2 hour or 12.5 hour batteries. How much? Try something like ¥400,000 or more than $4,000 when it pops for Japanese retail next month.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/17/toshibas-dynabook-ss-rx1-worlds-first-laptop-with-128gb-ssd/
Intel is going to launch the world’s first quad core processor for laptops - the Core 2 Extreme QX9300 - in the third quarter this year, DigiTimes’ sources at motherboard makers say.
“The Core 2 Extreme QX9300 will be manufactured at 45nm and have a core frequency of 2.53GHz. The CPU will come in a socket P package and support FSB speeds up to 1066MHz. The chip will include 12MB L2 cache and have a maximum TDP of 45W,” DigiTimes writes.
The QX9300 will be priced at $1,038 in thousand-unit tray quantities, according to the sources.
The first quad core notebook CPU is a part of the upcoming Intel “Penryn” lineup, designed for use with the next generation Intel Centrino 2 “Montevina” mobile platform.
Source: http://laptoping.com/intel-core-2-extreme-qx9300.html
Intel’s Vice President has said that the Larrabee should sample in Q4 2008 and that the actual products should follow soon. This confirms the current schedule that we’ve reported before where our sources have said that they expect to see Larrabee in Q4 and that the real parts are due in Q1 or later in 2009.
Intel also said that Larrabee is a platform that can do all sorts of calculations very well. Intel sees a Larrabee as graphics, visualization products but at the same time it sees it as a highly computational platform that will help the massive calculation tasks.
