[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

ATi Radeon 9600XT A-I-W:

How well does the world’s best all around video card score on the HotHardware heat-o-meter? Pretty damn high. Check out the full review of the ATi Radeon 9600XT All-In-Wonder and see just what it takes to peg the fellas “heat-o-meter”.

Simply put, the ATi All-in-Wonder 9600 XT is great product. Its got all of the features of the All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro it is replacing, plus it ships with an FM antenna and the excellent Remote Wonder II. It's core and on-board memory are also clocked at significantly higher speeds - which equates to much better gaming performance.

Driver Cheats Editorial:

Hardware Analysis has a short one page editorial today titled Nvidia driver cheats? Truth or fiction?. The editorial is somewhat interesting but doesn’t really answer its own questions. The point the author makes is that the image quality argument can be compared to MP3 compression. Agree? Disagree? Here’s a clip:

I think the jury is still out on what is the proper way to render frames; both companies have a different approach to calculating textures, doing anti-aliasing and all the other 3D calculations. Thus it comes as no surprise that Nvidia indeed renders scenes differently than ATi does, but where do you draw the line between a cheat, an optimization, a shortcut or an architectural difference?

Internet Advertising:

Internet advertising is back in a big way. The amount of money spent on internet advertising is almost at the same level as during the big dot.com era.

It's official: Internet advertising has fully recovered from the dot-com downturn. But as advertisers ramp up spending again, they're pursuing two very different strategies.

The funny part is, advertisers STILL don’t know how to lure potential buyers. How can I say that? The proof is in most commonly used methods by advertisers…craptacular full page ads, tons text links in a single page or ads that you must watch before you view a web page. Ugh!

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Dothan In May:

They say that if you hear something enough times, from reputable sources, that it must be true. Following that line of thinking, we have heard many times, from many people, that the Dothan processor from Intel will hit the market in May. This article says that supposedly the new mobile CPU will hit the streets on May 10th and bring more price cuts and a new naming scheme with it.

The latest notebook chip from Intel will come out May 10, according to sources, along with price cuts and a new naming scheme. Dothan is a new version of the Pentium M chip for notebooks. It will come with 2MB of cache, a pool of memory near the processor, and run at 2GHz, according to sources. Models running at 1.8GHz and 1.7GHz will also debut while cheaper, less speedy models will appear in June. Current Pentium M chips come with 1MB of cache and top out at 1.7GHz.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - PR Flack

Intel Honors Schools:

Intel Corporation and Scholastic Administr@tor magazine, leaders in technology and education, have teamed with the Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Foundation to develop this new award program to honor schools for implementing innovative and replicable programs that support positive educational outcomes. This program will highlight successes of the nation's best schools and celebrate their use of technology, the benefits of strong teamwork and their development of excellent classroom teachers.

ATi Selected By HP:

ATI Technologies Inc. has announced that the FireGL™ T2-128 and the FireGL™ X1-256p graphics accelerators will be the 3D graphics options available in the new HP Workstation c8000. Designed for users in automotive, aerospace and defense industries, the dual or quad CPU RISC based workstation, teamed with the FireGL™ workstation graphics accelerators, help provide an optimal operating environment for graphics intensive UNIX applications.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

External Disks:

Funny, every time I show mine off, some old lady down the street calls the coppers. OH, he said "diSk," sorry. Hexus an External Disk roundup.

There's external disk storage to suit all budgets and tastes these days, just don't expect it to perform miracles in the performance stakes if you're using FireWire or USB2.0.

GFFX 5700:

3DXtreme gives Albatron's 5700 non-Ultra card a whirl. For less than $120, it is not a bad solution at all.

Albatron has come through with a strong performing video card based on an older GPU. This card is targeted more at the budget minded consumer and at ~$100-$120 this card certainly is an attractive deal.

865PW w/Wireless:

Much like all the other cards we used to have on our boards, wireless to is moving towards being an included extra. Nice. PCStats reviews the Gigabyte GA-8IPE100 Pro2-W.

If wireless is not for you right now don't fret, the Gigabyte 8IPE1000 Pro2-W still packs in a mighty dose of Gigabit LAN care of the Intel CSA chip. Other standard features you'll want to take notice of include a 5.1 channel soundcard, IEEE 1394 and dual BIOS'.

[H]ardNews - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

CoolerMaster Hyper6 HSF @ SystemCooling - Vantec Aeroflow HSF @ FrostyTech

Etc.:

AOpen DVD Dual @ GamePyre - Super Multi DVD @ CDRLabs - Graphics Tablet @ ExtremeRevs

Modding:

Mars Case @ PimpRig - Drive Bay Mod @ UniqueHardware

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

TSMC = WIN!

I know one of my first thoughts when I started seeing flood of companies announcing partnerships with IBM's Fishkill Fab was, "How is this going to impact TSMC?" It seems the short answer to that question from TSMC might be, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass."

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Riding stronger demand for semiconductors, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker, saw its first-quarter profits surge more than 300 percent compared with the same period last year, the company said Tuesday.

The Future is Here...Almost:

No matter how you cut it, we all know the pr0n industry will enjoy huge rewards from images projected right onto the retina. So close you might even be able to feel it. Thanks Jim Downs.

US firm Microvision has developed a system that projects lasers onto the retina, allowing users to view images on top of their normal field of vision.

Hackers Attack Banks:

I thought this quote was the most interesting part of the article. Thanks WickerBill.

The vulnerability which was targeted by the attackers was, coincidentally, discovered by ISS and notified to Microsoft in September last year. It was one of 14 sealed by the patch issued along with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011 on April 13.

What sort of IT jackasses are these people at BANKS hiring? The old mattress is getting to look better and better every day.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

32-bit Vs 64-bit:

It is yet time again for another look at what 64-bit will really get you on a desktop system. No slight to TBreak, but I personally think these exercises are a waste of time till we see a real 64-bit OS in retail with applications optimized for it.

Where we'll hopefully see a noticeable rise in performance is when 64-bit apps are developed such as the upcoming Unreal version. Until then, we would advise sticking to the 32-bit version of Windows XP for everyday use.

Network Deplotation:

Yes, I know, I just made that word up, but it got the point across. ArsTechnica has an article entitled Deploying a Windows 2003 Based Network for Small Businesses posted. I am sure there are many of our readers that will dig on this.

This week, we begin a multipart series on Windows 2003 administration. Set up as a hands-on tutorial, this series will simulate the needs of a small start-up and will cover every aspect of Windows administration from file servers to web servers. Why a tutorial? After all, it appears so easy — point-and-click administration. But the truth is quite a bit different.

9800XT & SE & 9600XT:

BitTech covers a PowerColor roundup that looks at what the different levels of card will actually deliver.

There's no doubt that both ATi and NVIDIA are going to increase performance up another notch, but in essence, is this performance really needed to run the most taxing games on the market at the moment?

9800XT:

Be the owner of the fastest Radeon card in the world...till next week anyway. DigitalDaily reviews the GeXcube 9800XT in Russia.

Once I received the video card, I ran a series of overclocking experiments. As a result, we get the following maximum frequencies: the chip clock speed = 429 MHz, memory frequency = 391(782) MHz.

Counter Strike:CZ:

Say what you may, I enjoy playing Counter Strike:Condition Zero with bots. It quickly eliminated all the idiots from the game. GamePyre has the 411. Also, I bought mine using the Steam system with no problems.

In essence, the multiplayer in Condition Zero is just Counter Strike 1.6, with a few graphical enhancements, a few new maps, and a few skins.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

32-bit for AMD:

We have reported here several times on the newer Paris core CPUs from AMD and it has been evident that the true core has not been released yet. Digitimes is reporting that the new CPUs, which will still occupy a 754-pin socket, will be 32-bit only CPUs. While this may not excite some, this is exactly the sort of scaling that AMD needs across their product line to add value to the upcoming Athlon64 939-pin CPUs (dual memory controllers).

This will of course negatively impact the K8 chipset market, which is not a good thing for VIA or NVIDIA.

No Gaming Innovation:

I thought this was worth a read given that CNNMoney reported quite the opposite yesterday. David Allen, head of Pharaoh Productions, a game content company, said that the industry is basically void of innovation and he is taking his toys and going home (The text is in a popup window).

As I witness the recent games that have come out, and are currently being released, it has quickly become apparent to me that the industry has lost its way; gone is innovation and vision - and to make matters worse, I do not see resolution to the current problems anytime soon. I've been a gamer all of my life, and the amount of copycat boring products that are being released seems to compound every year.

I have to agree with the statements to some extent, but I think we are just seeing the game business, turn into the game industry. Thanks Blue.

Intel Jonah in 2H05:

Intel’s plan to integrate its families of notebook and desktop processors by introducing a single CPU, codenamed Jonah, to be used by both lines will not be realized until the second half of 2005 at the earliest, or in the first half of 2006 at the latest, according to sources at Taiwanese notebook makers.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

XBox2 Revealed:

While in no way official information, Chinese website GZeasy, has been a good source for leaked information in the past. Today they have posted a block diagram that they say outlines the Microsoft XBox2.

IBM 64-bit multithreaded CPU, ATI Graphics, and SiS IO are all rumored to be part of the package.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

DRAM Prices Up:

Digitimes is reporting that Micron is sold out and PC OEMs are having to look elsewhere for silicon.

Korea-based Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductors, and Taiwan-based ProMOS Technologies are benefiting from the shift in orders and Samsung has increased DRAM module prices because of rising orders, the sources added.

PC DVD Rocks:

You think that progressive scan DVD player that you shelled out the big bucks for is still tops in it class? HTPCNews says you had better think again by showing us that Yoda is in some serious need of some wrinkle cream.

Be sure to check out our latest guide detailing DVD Postprocessing and see the way DVD's were meant to be played... The results are simply stunning.

Swifty Water Chiller:

Actually chilling the water that you use to cool your computer components is of course the next logical step up the enthusiast cooling ladder for many of us. ProCooling has a review of Swiftech's new MCW-Chill for cooling down that water in your system.

The MCW-Chill is a water chiller that has been produced largely from standard Swiftech waterblock parts. At first glance it seems to be a couple of MCW5002 waterblocks cooling peltiers. The cold side of the peltiers are in turn cooling a small chamber where water is chilled.

5900XT:

Beyond3D has a review of the Gainward and Galaxy entries into the mainstream market with the NVIDIA 5900XT GPU.

Secondly, the Galaxy card was not a perfect gentleman in the test machine. The display was spoilt by scrolling lines, waving down the screen. Gainward's Ultra/1100 XT suffered no such problem.

[H]ardNews - Mods & Ends

Etc.:

17" LCD @ DesignTechnica - 485watt PSU @ Gruntville - Quiet 400watt PSU @ BigBruin - MouseGrips @ ViperLair - 400watt PSU @ Crucible

Modding:

PS2-ish PC @ PCUnleash - Panther Tank Mod @ TweakUp - LianLi Review @ AMDRev

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Your Money:

We suggest you ping your local and state representatives this week and let them know you will fire their asses should they reach further into your pockets. Remember, if you don't take action now, you give up your right to gripe later! Thanks all.

For Geeks Only:

Thank goodness that requirement covers most of you. This new Stretch processor might be worthy of its namesake as I want to see it outperform a 2GHz CPU on the desktop one day while running at 300MHz as noted. Thanks Joe Alpert.

Typical tasks, such as performing encryption or digital video processing on blocks of data, can be executed in single clock cycles.

Cooling:

TEC Cooler @ SilentPCRev - AcoustiFan @ TechNation - Evercool HSF @ R&B

Etc.:

WinXP Tips @ A1 - TVTuner Card @ ViperLair - External HD Enclosure @ 3DXtreme - 6n1 Card Reader @ 1SweetPC