Faster, bug-free Phenoms arrive

Four new TLB bug-free Phenoms go on sale later this week, the 2.2GHz Phenom 9550, the 2.3GHz Phenom 9650, the 2.4GHz Phenom 9750 and a new king of the hill: the 2.5GHz Phenom 9850. The latter has an unlocked multiplier so enthusiasts can overclock it to 2.8 or 2.9GHz, speculates Jon Carvill, AMD’s European PR manager.

A faster 2.6GHz Phenom will appear in the coming months, while the original Phenoms (9500 and 9600) will slowly be phased out.

AMD promises to shake up the low-end quad core arena by releasing an energy efficient version of the Phenom, called the Phenom 9100e. 9100es are cherry picked from AMD's manufacturing line for their excellent thermal properties. They run at 1.8GHz and have a thermal design point of 65W, significantly lower than the Phenom 9700's 125W TDP (Phenom 9700 review here) and the 9600's 95W TDP.

The triple-core Phenom 8000 series, which are quad core Phenoms with a one dud core, have gone to PC manufacturers already and will be appearing in shops in retail boxes in two week's time.

Ian McNaughton, a senior product manager at AMD, told me yesterday that the TLB (translation lookaside buffer) bug residing in the original Phenoms (9500, 9600, 9700), was blown out of all proportion.

There are long lists of bugs associated with x86 architecture and this was just another one, he said. AMD talked about the bug openly at Phenom's launch so its credibility with server manufacturers wouldn’t be ruined.

Servers can be seriously affected by this bug, but I’ve use a Phenom system on a daily basis and I can’t make the system crash in a repeatable fashion. In fact, PCW’s Phenom system has only crashed once, in Unreal Tournament 3, which is very unlikely to be related to the bug. All other benchmarks, games and applications run fine on a daily basis.

Finally, despite announcing Phenom X2s a few months ago, McNaughton admitted that Phenom based architecture won’t make it into dual core format in the foreseeable future. McNaughton claimed the X2 was on powerpoint slides to put AMD’s competitors on the wrong foot... so, Athlon X2s may well remain the fastest dual core AMD chips for a while.

Posted by Emil Larsen on March 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fraunhofer’s cheap 3D monitor

Fraunhofer, inventor of the mp3, has developed a 3D LCD monitor that doesn’t require green-and-red paper glasses.

It’s also cheaper and more versatile than previous designs since it doesn’t require an expensive lens and you don’t have to sit rigidly in front of it to see a 3D effect.

The 3D trickery starts with a glass panel, placed on top of any regular TFT display, which has ingrained black lines so that each eye sees a completely different set of pixels. A webcam then tracks your eye positions and software renders two images – one for each eye. If you move about, the webcam will track you and the images will adjust accordingly.

Fraunhofer only licenses out its technology, so we won’t see this exact concept model on sale. Its 20.1in panel had a 1,600x1,200 native resolution but needed to be fed a 3,200x1,200 resolution image.

My first impressions are that it is just as effective as Zalman’s 22in 3D monitor which costs over £400. We’ve had the Zalman monitor in our labs for several months now, but its drivers aren’t yet finalised.

Posted by Emil Larsen on March 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fujitsu Siemens zero-Watt-standby monitor finalised

Fujitsu Siemens has shown off the finished design of the first computer monitor to draw zero Watts in standby.

The early prototype used a solar panel to maintain an internal capacitor’s charge which flicks a relay when it detects a video signal. The new model doesn’t have solar panels but includes an auto-light sensor instead. In bright light the monitor draws around 46W, which drops to 27W when the monitor’s brightness is reduced in dark surroundings.

The monitor is now called the Scenicview P22W-5 ECO and will go on sale in the summer.

Posted by Emil Larsen on March 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Miniature Bluetooth dongle

If you're fed up of USB dongles that stick out of your laptop and break, you might like to check out the Nano USB Bluetooth 2.0 (2.1Mbits/sec) dongle from UK accessories specialist Mobile Fun. This tiny dongle has a rounded head to prevent snagging, and worked first time with no drivers needed in Windows XP. And even better, it's currently on offer for just £9.95, down from the original price of £17.95.

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on February 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A second look at the 940UX

PCW was contacted from multiple representatives at Samsung when we published our 940UX review claiming the driver we had used, which it had supplied, was out of date.

The new driver, we were promised, offered much higher video performance and support for 3D in Vista.

The software has definitely improved with the inclusion of an excellent taskbar utility that can rotate or mirror the display over USB.

Using the display in portrait mode is a disappoint though, since its viewing angle from the left (or bottom when rotated normally) is very poor – barely 60 degrees or so before contrast peters out rapidly.

Otherwise we've seen no video quality improvement and the displaylinkmanager.exe service still hogs 30-40 per cent of CPU time during 640x480 video playback on a 3GHz Pentium 4 system with 1GB Ram.

Samsung says the latest drivers (4.3 available from www.displaylink.com and not www.samsung.com) now let you use the Aero interface, but at the time of writing we couldn't get the latest drivers to work on our Vista machine at all. DirectX applications should be supported in the second half of 2008 according to Samsung.

So overall, with the £70 price premium over regular 19in monitors, the 940UX remains a three star product.

Posted by Emil Larsen on January 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Foxconn searches for the best overclockers

Foxconn is using cash and high end components to lure out the best overclockers to test its new equipment.

Its Quantum Force Scholarship program promises the goodies if you can hit high sky 3DMark scores with liquid nitrogen cooled processors on Foxconn motherboards.

Foxconn won't say how much cash is up for grabs but apparently you won't need to travel anywhere to do the testing (at home is fine) and only those with thoroughbred overclocking credentials need apply.

If there was a solid sum of money attached (and I didn't have a job) I would consider applying. I successfully fried my first chip (a 486 DX2 66MHz) by pushing the voltage too high back in my early teens. Today I have a liquid nitrogen dewar in my shed to help with such experiments:

Posted by Emil Larsen on November 14, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Flash hard disks prompted quick Giant Magnetoresistance award

The 2007 Nobel prize for Giant Magnetoresistance is "a Nobel prize that in two or three year's time we won't cherish" announced Fujitsu Siemens' CTO Joseph Reger last week.

By taking advantage of Giant Magnetoresistance, hard disks have about 10 times the density of hard disks made that are unaware of the quantum effect.

Reger's point was, of course, that flash based hard drives are due to take over. He praised the scientists who made the discovery but said it was now or never for the Nobel prize going their way. FSC's top brass predicts that, based on current trends, Nand Flash drives will be as cheap, reliable and as spacious as mechanical hard disks for servers by 2008.

Server hard disks are more expensive because their heat tolerance is a lot higher and their access times usually lower, so the rest of us could be waiting a bit longer for solid state drives in our machines. If my pockets were lined with gold, then a flash hard drive would definitely be at the top of my shopping list.

Posted by Emil Larsen on November 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

AMD announces triple core processors

AMD's triple core processor annoucement is a bit of a master stroke really, since AMD is painting it as a new initiative, however a spokesperson admitted to me triple core chips are simply quad cores that didn't make the cut.

Because AMD's quad cores are a built together on a single die you get a bigger chance of individual cores being faulty. They might not run at a desirable speed or they might not work at all. So rather than throw them out AMD can simply rebrand them triple cores. And at present, Intel can't do this at all because it builds quad cores with two dies.

In the office the PCW team could recently be heard singing Edwin Starr's "War" but with the following lyrics:

"Quad-core
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Quad-core…"

That's because for most consumers quad cores are overkill. But triple cores may actually make sense. AMD points out many PC games originate on the Xbox 360, which is based on triple-core architecture. This means triple-core is a tried and tested technology and might mean games converted from the Xbox 360 may play like a dream on AMD's chip.

Posted by Emil Larsen on September 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dead and stuck pixels still appearing

I've seen a number of LCDs with stuck pixels lately. These red, green or blue dots ruin films, games, pictures and pretty much anything you stare at on your screen.

Trying to flash a series of colours on a stuck pixel can purportedly knock it out of its stubborn state. A small utility called UDPixel apparently does this on just the affected part of the screen so you can carry on working.

I accept that stuck pixels were a problem when LCD technology was in its infancy, but to see some manufacturers send us in review kit with stuck pixels years later worries me a lot.

It's not uncommon for review kit to be cherry-picked. And if we get bad samples, what can everyone else expect?

In the last month I've seen a notebook from PC World and a desktop from Hi-Grade with the problem. The Hi-Grade had two stuck pixels and the warranty wouldn't cover a replacement for less than six stuck pixels – and even then, the replacement would be a refurbished model rather than a new one.

I was consoled somewhat however, when the Sony-monitor representative speaking on behalf of Hi-Grade sympathised with me, saying "I know it's a bit unfair".

I'm still investigating the notebook and will hopefully get the chance to test UDPixel with it soon.

Posted by Emil Larsen on August 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sapphire Radeon HD 2400XT and 2600XT pricing announced

More than two months after Nvidia got its mid range cards out of the door, AMD has finally followed suit. The prices are much lower than we expected:

The Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB DDR3 clocks in at £70, which is comparable in performance to the Geforce 8600GT, but actually a little cheaper.

The 2600Pro 256MB DDR2 is £59. The 2400XT 256MB DDR3, which is a significant step down in performance, costs £49 and the 2400Pro 256MB DDR2 costs £32, which looks like an absolute steal for a DirectX 10 card.

All prices include Vat and HDMI dongles are included with the 2600s but not the 2400s.

No word from any vendor on the dual-chip 2600XT that will have two GPUs. It's called the Radeon HD 2600 XT Gemini and AMD claims it will compete with the 8600GTS. AMD suggests a price of $189-249, just $40 more than the single core 2600XT.

Posted by Emil Larsen on June 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Radeon HD 2600XT first impressions

We just put the Radeon HD 2600XT through its paces in our labs. The successor to the X1650 chip, it's AMDs fastest mainstream product and will compete with Nvidia's Geforce 8600GT on price.

We tested with AMD's latest stable drivers '8.38.9-rc3' but there exist some 'performance' drivers out there which we'll soon give it a go with.

So, we achieved 5971 in 3DMark06 and 10,358 in 3DMark05, making it faster than the 8600GT in both these theoretical benchmarks at 1,024x768 running on an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, 1GB Ram and a 10,000rpm Western Digital Raptor.

It's faster in Half-Life 2 without anti-aliasing and just using trilinear filtering, but slower when 4xAA and 4xAF is turned on.

It's slower in Far Cry and slower in UT2004 by margins of 10 per cent. It's a similar case in Doom3 where the HD 2600XT looses out to the 8600GT at low resolution but beats it at 1,600x1,200 and beyond.

The Radeon HD 2600XT isn't a patch on the Geforce 8600GTS which is more expensive, and AMD hopes to compete with the faster 8600GTS card with the Radeon HD 2600XT Gemini, which is a single card with two 2600XT chips on it.

Where the Radeon HD 2600XT does save face though is in its vast array of features.

Like the 2900XT, all Radeon HD chips (bar the HD 2300 which is simply a rebranded X1300) include a hardware tessellation chip, which is a real boon and should improve 3D image quality in compatible games dramatically. This chip splits triangles into multiple triangles resulting in a greater level of perceived detail, without a significant performance hit.

Three game studios are currently working on titles for it according to AMD and what's more the tessellator will be a part of the DirectX 11 spec, due to be released in 18 months – two years according to AMD. It doesn't know if AMD's tessellator is the one to be used, since there can apparently be different kinds of tessellator.

The 2600XT also excels in multimedia use thanks to an audio controller built into the GPU that outputs audio through the graphics card DVI port no problem (with the aid of an HDMI dongle). We couldn't get the HD Audio controller driver to install on our test system though.

The Radeon HD range should also have superior high definition playback quality too according to AMD. We've recently got hold of an HD DVD version of the HQV test and we'll be confirming these claims as soon as possible too.

Hardware VC-1 decode which is another important feature Nvidia has omitted from its cards. It's appearing in more and more Blu-ray and HD DVD titles and is vital for low CPU utilisation.

What out for a full review soon.

Posted by Emil Larsen on June 28, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Commodores return in dual-core format

Commodore paraded their new machines in Soho last night, along with two pizzas and a drinks bar.

The come back for the now-Dutch company is a flashy one, because each PC comes with a high quality paint job. The basic design of every Commodore PC will remain the same though, and this includes the case construction and noise insulating padding.

There are over 100 different paint schemes to choose from which cleverly get applied to the case in a vacuum to avoid bubbles forming.

The company will be selling machines through retail in the UK but it won't name the shops yet. There aren't a whole lot of retailers in the UK that could take it on (Dixons, Maplins, Stapples… Tesco?) but one retailer stands out like a sore thumb and where the shoe fits…

Apparently if you buy a PC in a shop that only has a Hello Kitty paint job (say), Commodore will send you a second set of panels with the paint job of your choice, avoiding the problem of limited stock.

Machines will be customisable but there appears to be four very specific ranges, dubbed C=g, C=gs, C=gx and C=xx.

The starter machine (C=g) costs £950 inc. Vat and includes a Core 2 Duo E6320 1.86GHz processor, nForce 650i motherboard, 2GB Ram, 250GB 7,200rpm hard disk, 550W PSU, an Nvidia 7900GS 256MB and Vista Home Premium.

This is hardly groundbreaking technology for the price, but the paint job looks great up close and LED lights sprucing up the box will draw in punters like no tomorrow.

Posted by Emil Larsen on June 28, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Solid state drive goes on sale in UK

Samsung's solid state drive (SSD) is to go on sale in the UK under Just Rams' Integral brand.

The 32GB drive will arrive in the UK next month costing £411 inc. VAT – a tough price to stomach. It's also worth bearing in mind that a significantly faster 64GB drive will start rolling out of Samsung's factories within the next two months.

We've previously reviewed an oem version of the drive and found its performance was unparalleled for most tasks.

The utopia of 2.5in notebook drives, power consumption is considerably lower than mechanical hard disks. SSDs are also silent and operate at no more than two degrees hotter than ambient room temperature.

Reliability is an issue though and long term readers of PCW will know that NAND flash can fail after just a few re-writes, typified when formed editor Gordon Laing attempted to make a silent computer a few years back.

He used compact flash cards to store data but couldn't use Windows XP because it would destroy the compact flash card in no time due to lots of rewrites. He resorted to installing Dos.

Samsung insists that this is not a problem with its NAND flash, partly because it uses single layered cells, which can withstand 100,000 re-writes – ten times more than the number of re-writes multi layered cells, like that used in compact flash.

What's more, Samsung includes a chip that performs wear levelling that alleviates some of the re-write problems.

In layman's terms, it takes files that usually never change (unmovable system files, common program files) and places them on cells that have been rewritten to a lot, to sort of give the tired cells a break.

If a cell should fail, Samsung claims it uses error correction techniques to minimise the loss. Dead NAND flash cells might result in you getting 31.9GB instead of 32GB space available; whereas a single fault in a mechanical hard disk can spell 'game over' for all of your data.

You can read our 32GB solid state drive review here.

Posted by Emil Larsen on May 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Radeon HD 2900XT a product of unstable parents

Our Radeon HD 2900XT review is now live and we think it's a better buy than Nvidia's 8800GTS.

It's a good choice for the high end market but it still disappointment me because I was waiting for an Nvidia 8800GTX killer - one of epic proportions that would emulate what ATI achieved with the 9700 Pro that was miles faster than anything gone before it.

The card came up trumps in 3DMark05, but this is a benchmark I feel has less and less relevance to real gaming scenarios because most of the games I play (and the majority we and other websites benchmark with) are sponsored by Nvidia's 'The Way It's Meant To Be Played' programme. This means games are optimized for, and run better with, Nvidia's cards.

I'm not against this kind of optimization, however AMD has to renew it's own 'Get In The Game' sponsorship pressure because it really is lagging behind Nvidia in the number of game houses it links up with; there's been little movement since Half Life 2.

Perhaps the Radeon HD project was disrupted by AMD buying ATI. Being bought by another company is a disruptive force and one many of us in PCW towers can relate to; in the last eight months we've been owned by three different companies.

There was tension at the Radeon HD 2900XT launch in Tunisia two weeks ago especially when Richard Huddy, former ATI man, told a group of journalists he'd been cautioned by two senior AMD officials for giving a risqué introductory presentation (over drinks) saying budget graphics cards were for "past it" women.

This is a step away from the all singing, all dancing graphics company that is used to holding launches in Ibiza.

Posted by Emil Larsen on May 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lazarus stays dead as Intel falls victim to Murphy's Law, Rider 232

We report today how the latest power-efficient version of Intel's Centrino notebook platform, codenamed Santa Rosa, has different versions for the consumer and business markets. But it was the business models, with their enhanced management facilities, that the company was anxious to plug at the breakfast launch at Broadgate Circle, in the heart of London's financial centre.

Things did not start well for your reporter, and several others who attended, because the online street map pointed us to the wrong side of Liverpool Street station.

We did spot some signs to Broadgate Circle but it is not for nothing that the signwriters of Britain are famous for their sense of humour. They played their usual trick of providing excellent directions to a point where we were completely lost, and then leaving us stranded.

Most of us nevertheless arrived in time for an Intel sausage and a speech about how the new Centrino Pro technology would at last allow IT managers to sleep at night. Basically Pro adds new security and management features to the Centrino bundle and most of it sounded pretty good, in theory.

A new hardware filter monitors data traffic on the notebook and shuts it down in the event of any suspicious activity, such as an email sending your banking details to Themob@mafia.com. Or a virus sending a pornographic link to your entire mailing list.

Arun Shenoy, UK business director, announced that draft 11n would boost wireless performance fivefold, though no-one seemed quite sure what this meant. He also announced that it would double the range, without mentioning that this could quadruple the number of contending 11n networks at a time when Intel is encouraging their use for high-definition TV streaming. Well, there's always Cat 5...

We were then introduced to Intel's Lazarus act...raising a remote machine from the Blue Screen of Death. This is part of what the company calls Active Management Technology, introduced on desktops under the brand VPro late last year and now extended to notebooks.

The idea is that a company can use a single console to manage and maintain its entire complement of computers, fixed or mobile. The single difference is that, though desktops can be woken up over the network even when switched off, notebooks have to be powered up to be accessible.

The reason, according to the Intel man showing off the technology, is that leaving the wireless on would drain the battery, annoy the airlines, and perhaps bring down a few planes and start a Third World War.

Boys in my day used to make crystal sets that could pick up Timbuktu using no power at all, so I asked why they didn't stick in a low-drain receiver to pick up a wake-up call?

"Perhaps in a future model," the man said, twiddling with his management console. He selected a notebook from one of those on the network. "This one has power. See how I can wake it up."

Rider 232 of Murphy's Law kicked in. As product managers from Seoul to San Francisco know, this states that if anything can go wrong, it will happen in front of journalists. The notebook Lazarus remained resolutely dead.

"It was working early this morning," said the Intel man. "Damn pre-production model. You can't rely on them."

He chose another model across the room which also required a reset.

This dutifully burst into life, to the delight and relief of a colleague standing next to it in evident terror of becoming a second victim of Murphy's Law.

Intel gave us all an umbrella and we left. Despite the hassles I can't wait to get my paws on one of the new models, especially HP's new tablet convertible - and even more especially Toshiba's first ultra-mobile, which I was reliably informed will launch in a couple of months.

Posted by Clive Akass on May 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nvidia launches 8800GTX Ultra

Nvidia has launched the Geforce 8800GTX Ultra, its latest high end DirectX 10 graphics card.

It's essentially an overclocked Geforce 8800GTX and looks very similar. The GTX Ultra's shader processors are clocked at 1500MHz, up from the 1350MHz present on the GTX. Core speed has been increased to 612MHz from 575MHz and the GTX Ultra cards come with 768MB of 2160MHz memory, up from 1800MHz.

The cards cost £460-£500 and will be available at e-tailers and retailers worldwide by May 15th.

Nvidia claims that in game testing with an Intel X6800 and 2GB performance is up by an average of 12.7 per cent over a range of games and resolutions. Expect a PCW review soon.

Posted by Emil Larsen on May 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It's an HD-DVD player (oh no it's not!)

We picked up a copy of Digital Life today, one of those ad inserts you find in magazines, and saw an HP HD-DVD drive, the HD100, on sale.

Amusingly this drive has done the rounds on nearly every big technology website in the last five months and none of them have picked up on the fact that there is something very wrong with the image.

This HD-DVD drive has been obviously been photoshopped because it included a blue light on the front of it with BD written underneath, an abbreviation for Blu-ray disc.

Even HP's own website shows the image as an homage to Blu-ray PC drives getting first to market.

Gaffes aside the HD100 costs £309.20, which is very expensive for a drive that won't write, especially when you consider Microsoft's Xbox360 HD DVD drive is fully PC compatible and sells for £130 inc. VAT.

Posted by Emil Larsen on February 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dell's H2C gaming monster goes on sale in UK

Dell has started selling its super high-end H2C gaming machine in the UK.

It is factory overclocked to 3.2GHz without any core voltage increases.

Experienced enthusiasts might want to stay clear of the product since Dell has locked the vcore bios settings so you can't increase core voltage for extra overclocking.

Voltage on the memory dims can be increased though and products on show at Dell's innovation event in Marbella were overclocked to 3.6GHz by pushing up the FSB.

I had some serious hands on with the machine in Marbella and my first impressions are that it is an austounding piece of kit. The minimum specs are:

• Core 2 Extreme QX6700 factory overclocked to 3.2 GHz
• Dual 768MB GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards
• 2 GB 667MHz DDR2 Ram
• 320GB 10,000 RPM SATA Raid 0 (2x160GB) hard disks
• Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music Soundcard
• 128MB Ageia PhysX physics accelerator
• Prices start at £3,400 (not including peripherals like a monitor...)

Unlike other liquid-cooled systems, the XPS 710H2C is advertised as maintenance-free for seven years thanks to special black rubber tubes so liquid doesn't permeate out.

Suggestions from journalists that including a 1000 Watt power supply was irresponsible were sidestepped although an enthusiastic Dell spokesperson eventually joked that when "the rest of the houses start to dim, we congratulate them."

Finally Dell bragged it was the best gaming PC in the world and one rep told PCW it was even better than anything Alienware has to offer. Alienware was bought by Dell last year.

One of the systems was running Crysis, which is a DirectX 10 game filled with astonishing eye-candy. I can report the current beta is very jumpy, even on the above system, with frame rates bobbling around 30fps max.

In other news Dell's high-end gaming notebook, the XPS M1710, is now shipping with Intel's latest Core 2 Duo T7600G. This processor was announced at CES this month and Dell is currently the only supplier to have it.

It is basically a Core 2 Duo T7600 that has an unlocked clock multiplier and Dell's warranty covers you overclocking it.

Posted by Emil Larsen on January 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

See-through transistors could plant maps on car windscreens

News of a breakthrough in transparent electronics, announced in the journal Nature Materials, went largely unnoticed over the Christmas break though the development has intriguing possibilities.

A lot of people have been trying to develop invisible electronics to drive displays, but no-one came up with solutions providing anything like an acceptable performance.

But transparent transistors developed by researchers at Chicago's Northwestern University are actually faster than standard silicon drivers and perform almost as well as high-end polysilicon devices. Moreover they can be manufactured a low-cost.

So what's the point? Professor Tobin Marks, who led the research team that developed the transistor, says it could lead to car windshields that display maps and see where you are going. Shop windows could display prices and information while allowing people to see goods on display. And you have images apparently floating in mid-air.

Conventional thin-film transistors used to build the matrix that switches on and off the pixels of TFT displays are not transparent, and therefore block some of the light in backlit screens. Presumably, therefore, transparent transistors would make screens more efficient.

Incidentally Philips has just filed a US patent for another (UK developed) technology that will make liquid-crystal screens more efficient. We'll report on that when we fine out more about it.

Posted by Clive Akass on January 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

No more Wiing 'for a few weeks'

Brace yourself because there will be no more Wiis 'for a few weeks' according to the staff at HMV on Oxford Street.

Unless you have pre-ordered the console (and even if you have) there is no stock and definitely no pick and go Wiis at the UK's biggest HMV.

The store has stopped taking pre-orders too because they have yet to fulfil their commitments to those that pre-ordered prior to the launch.

As we previously reported there were no queues on Thursday (despite what the BBC reported) and we only witnessed people gathering during the evening.

At 12:01am HMV opened its doors to punters but only had 200 consoles to sell to people without a pre-order and the police feared fights would break out.

To avoid confrontation, HMV took the names of the first 200 people in the queue and let them pick up their Wii's this morning instead.

On a side note Nintendo painted Wii advertising on an old bus and drove it about central London to try and bring the hype up, but I feel this has been the quietest UK launch of a console for years now!

Posted by Emil Larsen on December 8, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New tech reduces blurring

BenQ is demonstrating a new technology that reduces blurring on monitors.

Dubbed black frame insert (BFI) the technology does exactly what it says on the tin, namely insert a black frame in between normal frames.

The human eye naturally blurs things together in day to day life. Some effects of an image are left behind (after the image has disappeared) whilst the eye picks up the next image. BFI compensates for the eye's natural blur effects by turning off the image in between each 'refresh'.

A demonstration pitched BenQ's £750 24 in FP 241W against an identical model with BFI added. BFI adds a £100 premium to monitors and I noticed a decent increase in sharpness when comparing identical video on the two. The BFI model will be called the FP 241WZ and will be on sale in January 2007.

Downsides to the technology include the screen is made visibly darker (because or extra dark frames being added all the time) and I noticed a slight flickering during the presentation. Even in the picture above you'll notice the BFI version (left) is dimmer than the panel lacking BFI.

The benefits and flickering won't be seen by everyone since every eye is different. Perhaps people with silly eyes will only see flickering and no benefits!

On a side-note Royce Lye, marketing manager for BenQ, told me that the UK may not see BenQ's 1080p projectors, the W10000 and W9000, due to a lack of demand on these shores. Unlike the Germans and the Yanks, when Britons want a cinema experience in their homes, they don't think of buying a projector!

Posted by Emil Larsen on December 8, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

AMD chases Intel

AMD has launched four processors manufactured using a 65 nanometre process as part of its frantic chase to catch up Intel.

Intel rolled out CPUs based on a 65 nanometre (a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre) process more than a year ago and is readying 45nm processors for autumn 2007, giving it a substantial lead over AMD in terms of manufacturing costs.

All AMD processors will be manufactured at 65nm by late 2007. For now the only 65nm processors available are the 5000+, 4800+, 4400+ and 4000+. These dual core processors are also available in 90nm versions and pricing for the 65nm AMD Athlon 64 dual-core processors remains the same as their 90nm counterparts.

The new technique means smaller transistors can be drawn closer together and make more processors per silicon wafer, thus reducing costs. The advancement is also essential for AMD to keep increasing the frequency and complexity of future processors.

Separately AMD recently demonstrated its first quad core part, codenamed Barcelona. What 'demonstrated' means is that it showed the processor being capable of booting into Windows. We're still at least half a year away from seeing a quad core part from AMD in the shops.

Unlike Intel's quad core this is a native piece, which means all four cores are made from one bit of silicon (Intel's puts two side-by-side). Intel's quad core uses two separate dies (pieces of silicon) which means it consumes a few more amps.

Posted by Emil Larsen on December 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

AMD makes bold Vista claim

AMD went demo crazy today by showing off identically looking Viiv and Live PCs and laptops.

The difference between AMD and Intel systems in The Sims 2 had the most startling effect on me. It utilizes Shader Model 2 as standard on AMD integrated graphics, whereas Intel's GMA 3000 graphics seem to be stuck in the dark ages, using only Shader Model 1.1. Water detail and reflections were missing from the Intel system and textures generally made the game look straight out of the 90s.

AMD has a very convincing lead when comparing integrated graphics side by side. A low end computer bought for Christmas will indeed have a better 'out of the box experience'.

As we said in our news story, the other half of AMD's presentation was that Live's integrated graphics will run Vista's Aero desktop acceptably, even with the demanding glass translucency effect.

This flies in the face of the widely accepted viewpoint that a discrete mid-range to high-end graphics card will be needed. When AMD wouldn't show us Vista in action on a Live system, claiming Intel's drivers are too poor for a fair comparison, our suspicions grew stronger.

We hope to test AMD's claims soon because if true, the impetus to be Vista ready really will fade.

Posted by Emil Larsen on November 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Giving your computer to charity

There is a growing belief among many home users that you can't give your old computer to developing countries. With projects like the $100 One Laptop per Child initiative getting masses of publicity and a raft of countries including Libya, Argentina and Nigeria already placing orders of 1million laptops each, the emphasis has changed from re-using computers to just building cheap new ones.

Therefore please understand my surprise when I crossed the Computer Aid International stall at Linux World Expo in London last week. It sends Pentium 3 class computers and above to developing countries such as Kenya and Chile where they are put to good use in schools. You can drop your computers off at Computer Aid International's offices on Holloway Road in London. Alternatively individuals can get their old PCs and equipment picked up for £9.75 per box. This is an extremely affordable alternative to driving to a recycling centre or to the tip. It also has strong links with businesses who find it a competitive way of getting rid of their old equipment.

So what does all this have to do with Linux? Bill Gates has pledged $27bn to charity I hear you say. Despite this Microsoft software isn't always charity friendly because transferring software licenses is a legal minefield and completely impossible for businesses with corporate site-licenses. For this reason Computer Aid International must go through the hassle of formatting most computers and installing open source software on them. A positive side effect is that donors' private data will always be deleted.

Good environmental practice was also a recurring theme at Linux World. Ian Roberts from the Open Source Consortium pointed out that a computer's lifetime was 3-4 years when running Microsoft software or 6-8 years under less power-hungry Linux. This may well be true however he and every other delegate at Linux World appeared to be using modern and flashy laptops.

Posted by Emil Larsen on October 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Power Rangers

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to get an invite from Enermax in the UK
to use their power supply testing rig. Such setups are a rarity outside mainland Europe
so we duly trotted up to Milton Keynes armed with a box or two of PSU’s to do some testing.

Time constraints limited us to what tests we could do, so naturally enough we went for the big one - 100% Stress Testing and stood well back.

Some interesting results and it must be said smells came out of the various supplies. One supply, typical of the sort found in low end cases, went bang before it got anywhere near its claimed output, while the most powerful supply tested the Tagan Turbojet 1100 was noisier than the unit used to pump the power into the supplies.

See PCW’s power supply feature in the up coming January 2007 issue or to see the stress test results see the new Power Supply section on Reportlabs.

Posted by Simon Crisp on October 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

To Taiwan, testing the world's first solid state ultra-mobile PC

I'm roadtesting the new solid-state version of the Samsung Q1 ultra-mobile PC on a madly rushed trip to Taiwan (of which more tomorrow). The Q1 has a 32Gbyte solid-state disk(SSD), 1Mbyte of Ram, and an 895MHz Intel processor and must be the world first mainstream PC with no moving parts.

It is a joy to be using once again a computer that is truly portable, and also one that really can  be pen driven. The handwriting recognition actually works, if you use it with care, so that it has much of the convenience of a paper notebook. I stress these points because the Q1 cannot be judged by the standards or ordinary notebooks, or even larger Tablet PCs. It is a new class of machine, which means that even its faults are interesting because they show how ultra-mobiles can and will get better. 

The SSD is, frankly, a little dissappointing. Boot-up times are fast (10 to 15 seconds) but not instantaneous. The biggest difference I've noticed so far was when installing Microsoft Office. I did this in the rush of departure and didnt time the install, but it seemed to finish in about five minutes. But I feel happier using something that is not going to lose data, or worse, if dropped or jarred.

The speed of the SSD may be offset to some extent by the relatively slow processor, which is having to run the Origami/Tablet PC interface. But the work I (and I suspect most people) do on the move is largely word-processing, email and a little web browsing and it is well adequate for that.

One feature that seems to be new - at least I didn't notice it when I tried out the first Q1 release earlier this year - is that a single button allows you to click from the screen's 600x480 native resolution, to a 'virtual' 800 x 600 or 1024 x 600 resolution. This is useful when you are running applications formatted for the higher resolutions, which tend to lose dialogue boxes and navigation bars at 600 x 480.

What struck me most on returning to the Q1 was how much networks and services will have to mature before the format can fully comes into its own. Once you start plugging in peripherals, such as a DVD drive  or printer, you are up to your armpits in adaptors and cables. There is no reason why these resources should not be accessible over the network 

And it is time the industry started making a priority out of developing smart power supplies that avoid the need to carry around so many mains adapters. Power-over-Ethernet is the nearest we have and I am not convinced that it is going to fit the bill.

Incidentally there is a lot about next generation connectivity in the coming print edition of PCW.

Posted by Clive Akass on October 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Viewdock: LCD displays with iPod dock

Viewsonic has announced a new range of LCD displays called Viewdock. They are the first displays to come with a dock for an iPod incorporated into the design.

This dock will provide the USB connection to your PC for charging and data transfer but also will enable you to control your iPod with the menus displayed on the much larger widescreen display.

As is common with Viewsonic's other monitors they will have good audio capabability: built-in speakers, subwoofer and microphone. So the quality when playing music through the monitor should be better than some of the cheap speaker docking systems for iPods.

Viewdock monitors have a number of other extras: several USB ports and an 8-in-1 memory card reader. They are part of the "Made for iPod" line of approved accessories.

Posted by Marc Delehanty on September 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Commodore's new PET project

The Commodore brand is undergoing something of a revival of late and this is most evident at the IFA conference in Berlin this week where new Commodore Gravel devices are on display.

The model pictured is the Gravel In Pocket. It's a portable music and movie player and has Wifi capability to connect to different media sources. Upon release it'll come with storage capacities of either 1 or 2GB. Movie playback will be at full rate of 24fps and the TFT screen's size is a relatively large 2.8in.

The Commodore name has bounced around among various owners since the original company went bankrupt in 1994. But for die hard fans the proliferation of trendy Commodore branded mp3 players will never dilute the powerful appeal of Commodore's early PET.

Resurrecting a defunct computer brand isn't a new idea: Acorn began selling computers again earlier this summer.

Posted by Marc Delehanty on August 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spintronics: smarter circuits

Computers these days are often power hungry beasts, despite the move towards more power efficient processors. Well while Intel and AMD engineers slave over the their chip blueprints it seems that some physicists are coming up with a cleverer approach: replace electronic circuits with spintronic ones.

It's reported in Nature this month that using magnetic fields instead of applying electrical current can power the kind of circuitry that we find in all kinds of devices. Using such spin-based circuits would see a drastic reduction in power consumption and heat generation along with giving engineers the ability to make faster and smaller devices.

Spintronic circuits are still a long way off but, given that ever shrinking conventional circuitry is fast approaching its physical limit, this is something worth keeping an eye out for.

Posted by Marc Delehanty on August 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Chinese checkers cause another embarrassment for Dell

The exploding laptop horror is not Dell's only problem at the moment. The Ars Technica website reports that the company faces a class action by Chinese purchasers of a laptop that used a Core Duo T2300E processor rather than the slight more expensive T2300, as advertised. The only difference between the two is that the T2300 supports virtualisation, whereby the computer acts as two or more logically separate machines.

Virtualisation is far more likely to be used on desktops and servers, so few users are likely to be seriously affected. But as with the exploding laptop story, which was broken by our sister site  The Inquirer, a single web posting ballooned into a major legal and public-relations problem. The Chinese checkers who spotted the downgraded T2300E processor demanded - and got - an apology from Dell.

Posted by Clive Akass on August 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dell's exploding batteries recalled

Today is not shaping up to be a good day for Dell. It's recalling over four million laptop batteries after reports that six of its laptops spontaneously combusted.

Our sister site, the Inquirer, has provided us with some startling photos of the Dell machines on fire.

Sony manufactured the batteries so you can be sure Dell will be giving them some heat over this flaming mess!

This is the largest recall of electrical goods in US history although many of these laptops will surely have found their way to the UK and elsewhere.

Dell is offering free replacements and is undertaking this recall voluntarily. To find out if your laptop battery is affected visit: Dell's battery recall website.

Lithium Ion batteries age very badly, losing their charge capacity over time regardless of usage and number of charge cycles. So for those of us whose laptops haven't exploded but are stuck with a rubbish old battery, this can only be good news?

Posted by Marc Delehanty on August 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Dirt may be bad but it is good for you

The latest scare story about bacterial contamination in the workplace reminds me of a conversation I had with a doctor about how many men washed their hands after going to the urinal. 'Actually,' he said, ' it makes more sense to wash your hands before you go, because your hands are the dirtiest part of your body.'

The office contamination figures provided by Durable are horrifying but the company fails to point out that much of it is coming from our own bodies. Our hands may well be dirtier than our desks.

Nor does the company point out that you can actually make your environment too clean. Can't find a reference, but a report  some time back said kids brought up in ultra-clean households actually have more diseases because they do not build up a resistance.

This is no excuse for being dirty. But it does show that whatever you do, you can't win.

Posted by Clive Akass on August 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

British Motor Show: Put a PC in your car

Hobbyists have been building PCs into cars for years, but now you can finally buy a ready-made solution. For between £1,400-2,000 inc Vat, Derbyshire-based company Karputer will sell you a mini-ITX 1GHz Via C3-powered Windows XP PC system called ICEPAC that's ready to install into pretty well any car.

Various installation options are available, depending on your car's layout. The first picture shows the DIN-standard PC controller and a motorised TFT display option. Below is a picture of an in-dash screen mounted in a Subaru Impreza, and the bottom picture shows the actual PC unit mounted below the seat.

The PC is fully featured, with a USB hub, DVD writer, Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS navigation built in. Internet access is via a Bluetooth-connected mobile GPRS phone or via any wifi hotspot. A separate power supply and stereo audio amplifier module is provided. Additional displays can be hooked up via a VGA splitter.

DIY installation is possible if you're keen enough, although professional installation can take from 2-12 hours depending on the car model and the type of setup you want.

Posted by on July 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Chillblast takes top spot with fastest Core 2 Duo PC yet

On Friday, we wrote about the fastest PC we'd seen in our labs -  the Hi-Grade Ultis Tachyon PC, based around Intel's Core 2 Extreme desktop processor.

Well, a weekend's a long time in computing, and today, we've posted our review of the Chillblast Fusion Hardcore Crossfire, which has now taken top spot in our PC performance league. It uses what on paper looks like the slow E6700 Core 2 Duo CPU, but has overclocked it, giving the computer enough grunt to surpass the normal clocked X6800 Core 2 Extreme.

The PC uses ATI's Crossfire graphics, rather than SLI - there's no retail motherboard at the time of writing that supports the Nforce 590 chipset and the new Intel processors. But Chillblast told us they'd have an SLI version as soon as the boards are out.

Intel's two new processors are the subject of our Product of the Week podcast, plus we've arranged  with Intel a competition to give away an E6700 Core 2 Duo CPU as a prize. This is its top of the range mainstream processor, and you'll find the answer to the question in the podcast.

Posted by Rob Jones on July 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hi-Grade out of the traps quickly with blazing fast Core 2 Extreme

The Ultis Tachyon sounds like something from Star Trek and this PC certainly has something approaching a warp core at it's heart.

The rather mundane case on the left houses the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor and boy does it fly!

We've got a full review of Hi-Grade's Ultis Tachyon system online. Do read it but make sure you're sitting down and suitably calm before checking out the benchmarks!

Posted by Marc Delehanty on July 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HD delayed ... again

Toshiba is delaying the release of its HD-DVD recorder, which is bad news for HD-DVD in the HD format wars, bad for consumers and come to think of it, bad for Toshiba too.

Seems that the main proponent of HD-DVD is blaming third parties on not delivering components on time. What was that saying about a bad workman and his tools?

Any further slips and it'll look like an attempt to emulate Microsoft with all its Vista slips ...

Posted by Marc Delehanty on July 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sitting on the HD fence

Hardware manufacturers and content providers have been busy lining up behind either one of the two competing HD media types: Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

Rumours abound that Ricoh is planning to release a drive with a laser capable of reading from and writing to both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs. Both technologies are based around blue laser technology operating at 405nm.

We're not sure whether Ricoh is fence sitting on the whole HD-DVD / Blu-ray issue as a corporate strategy or if it's trying to push technology to its limits for the good of the consumer ...

Posted by Marc Delehanty on July 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Affordable Dual Core PCs fight it out

PCW's group test of £899 dual core PCs is now online.

PC Nextday, Evesham and Mesh, among others, sent in their systems to be thoroughly tested.

While some impressed, others were weighed, measured and found wanting.

If you're interested in harnessing the power of multi-core processors then check out the reviews of these AMD and Intel systems.

This whole area is hotting up and we can't wait for the July release of Intel's Core 2 Duo ...

Posted by Marc Delehanty on June 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sata pain for BTX media PC

For some time I’ve been struggling with a self-built BTX entertainment PC that just wouldn’t work properly.

Sometimes the Shuttle-based system would start fine, only to freeze within half an hour, other times it simply wouldn’t start, telling me I needed my Boot Disk.

I tried everything I could think of to fix it: checked component connections, ran diagnostics, swapped in a different CPU, hard disk and memory. Still the intermittent fault continued.

Being a case that can handle multiple hard disks, in exasperation, I tried the unused Sata connections. I now no longer swear and promise the PC pain and abuse, and have a system that runs smoothly without problem.

The moral of this story? Don’t forget to check your leads when you hit what seems to be a hardware fault. Thinking of it earlier would have saved me a lot of time.

Posted by Rob Jones on June 2, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dell to ship with Google software

Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced yesterday that Dell is to begin shipping PCs with Google software pre-installed.

Dell haven't commented yet but it's safe bet that the software bundled with its machines will closely resemble the Google Pack which is currently available for download. Schmidt also said that Dell PCs will come with a co-branded Dell-Google homepage as default.

Most of Google's software is free, but considering that the announcement was made at a Goldman Sachs internet conference (for investors) you can be sure that serious money is involved.

Microsoft is certainly under threat as Google further extends its reach into the desktop market, promoting both their own software (Google Desktop, Google Earth, Picasa) and free independent programs (Firefox, Ad-aware).

Posted by Marc Delehanty on May 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack