Still Wondering About PCI Video Card Performance?

Our friend Dinny Neskorik over at Sudhian has written a great article taking a look at PCI video card performance. While many will think that this is something that no longer matters, it in fact has become quite an issue for those who have purchased off the shelf integrated systems that don't offer an AGP slot.

"PCI video cards fill a "niche" market, and professional review sites tend to ignore them. All of their efforts are spent reviewing the latest and greatest AGP video cards, since most of their readers own computers with AGP ports."

So if you are looking for a PCI card that that will help you get your game on this is an article that you will want to read. A lot of good information if you are still trying to squeeze life out of your computer investment.

Read the Ultimate PCI video card review here.

SiS launches 800MHz dual channel chipset – the SiS655TX

Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) today announced the release of the SiS655TX for the popular 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) standard, representing SiS’s highest-level dual-channel product supporting the Intel Pentium 4 platform.

More here at DigiTimes

OCZ announces PC4200 EL DDR memory

OCZ has just announced the availability of PC4200 EL DDR memory modules based on OCZ EL DDR ICs. "OCZ PC4200 EL DDR memory will be available in 256MB and 512MB modules along with 512MB and 1GB Dual Channel kits. OCZ PC4200 EL DDR modules will include a copper heatspreader and are rated for CL 2.5-4-4-7 operation at 2.8 volts."

Read the entire press release here.

Toshiba to demo simplified 100Mbps WLAN

Toshiba's European R&D division will next week demonstrate a "low complexity" WLAN capable of achieving raw data rates of up to 100Mbps - almost double what today's 802.11g standard can offer. "The company will show off the technology at the ITU Telecom World 2003 conference in Geneva, which opens its doors on Monday."

Read the entire story here.

Motorola Licenses MRAM Technology To Honeywell

Motorola said Wednesday (Oct. 8) it has licensed its magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) nonvolatile chip technology to Honeywell Inc. "The agreement is expected to accelerate Honeywell's ability to develop radiation-hardened MRAMs for military and aerospace applications such as satellites."

Read the entire story here.

Sun to release Solaris for AMD's Opteron

Sun Microsystems' Solaris will become the third operating system to take advantage of Advanced Micro Devices' 64-bit Opteron processor. "Solaris, Sun's version of Unix, already runs on 32-bit "x86" processors including AMD's Athlon and Intel's Xeon. But Sun also will release a version in 2004 that will take advantage of the 64-bit extensions that make Opteron different from those other chips, Sun software chief Jonathan Schwartz told reporters in a meeting here Thursday."

Read the entire story here.

Half-Life 2 Source Leaked

Gabe Newell confirmed today that the source for Half-Life 2 has been leaked. From what we can tell, it appears that Valve has been the victim of a hacker attack. Gabe is asking for the help of the community in trying to track down those responsible for this attack.

While certainly Valve isn't the favorite company of late to many. If this is retaliation toward them for their out spoken position toward the performance of the NVIDIA products, it is clear that this is stepping over the line.

What are people trying to prove? Why would someone due such a thing? Who could be responsible for such an attack?

Having a code leak like this will most certainly impact Valve's ability to sell HL2 because people might make judgments on the finished product after looking leaked code. Let us hope for Valve's sake that this leak is not that wide spread.

You can read Gabe's thoughts and explanation of the situation here.

Notebook prices cease falling, say Taiwanese notebook makers

Thanks to stabilization in retail notebook prices since early 2003, Taiwanese notebook makers now feel less pressure to compete on prices, compared to the last two years, industry sources said.

More here at DigiTimes

LG.Philips LCD ships industry-record two million TFT LCDs

LG.Philips LCD yesterday announced that it has achieved an industry record of shipping two million large-size (10-inch and over) TFT LCDs in one month.

More here at DigiTimes

Price of 256Mbit graphic memory chips to bottom out

The price of 256Mbit graphics memory chips is showing signs of bottoming out now that mid-range and high-end graphics chips from ATI Technologies and Nvidia support the memory, according to Taiwan-based distributors.

More here at DigiTimes

UMC to see surging 12-inch wafer output at 0.13-micron node during 4Q

United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) projects strong 12-inch wafer output using 0.13-micron processing in the fourth quarter, thanks to a major client’s aggressive migration to the advanced process, said sources.

More here at DigiTimes

Orders from Europe bolster mobo suppliers' optimism

Increasing sales to the European market is giving impetus to the sustained growth of motherboard makers in Taiwan. Companies expect the final three months to generate the highest quarterly revenues for 2003.

More here at DigiTimes

Taiwan mobo makers shifting to SATA specs

Taiwan motherboard producers are giving full thrust to the development and manufacturing of products with serial ATA (SATA) specifications to replace parallel ATA (PATA) models as SATA boards emerge as the mainstream products in the market.

More here at DigiTimes

Eolas Founder: Browser Victory Shouldn't Alter HTML

To Michael Doyle, the recent victory for his company, Eolas Technologies Inc., against Microsoft Corp. in a Web browser patent-infringement lawsuit shouldn't be leading to a re-examination of anything more than Microsoft itself. Doyle, who founded the Chicago company, disagrees with the World Wide Web Consortium's move on Tuesday to create an advisory group to consider whether the $521 million jury verdict in the case will require changes to HTML. Instead, he says Microsoft should settle the case, and the Web community should encourage the software giant to do so.

In an interview with eWEEK.com reporter Matt Hicks, Doyle shared his opinions on the largely negative reaction to the patent verdict and explained his intentions behind the patent technology, the lawsuit and licensing.

More at eWeek

SuSE Linux Version 9.0 Prepped for October Release

SuSE Linux is set to release its latest consumer product, SuSE Linux 9.0. The company claims the update is the first home user operating system platform to leverage AMD's Athlon 64 processor, giving workstation users performance enhancements available only through the 64-bit architecture.

The new operating system, which will be available in retail stores on October 24, also allows easier Windows migration by supporting NTFS file systems and gives technical users a first-look at the enhanced capabilities of the upcoming 2.6 Linux kernel.

More at eWeek

Reuters, MSN to Announce Connectivity Deal

Reuters PLC and Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday are expected formally to announce a deal that will use new instant-messaging management technology from IMLogic Inc. to connect the Reuters IM and MSN Messenger IM services securely.

Reuters is licensing IMLogic's IM Manager platform and will deploy the software at its data centers to manage connectivity between its IM service and MSN Messenger. Reuters is expected to offer this connectivity to other IM services, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger as well.

More at eWeek