Tech News for Thursday February 24th 2000.

America Online Starts Wireless Division.
Posted: 02/24/2000     Source: Beta News  Added by: Kim Heise
Now that is a scary thought: Sitting in a meeting and someone's cellphone retorts "You have mail" or "Buy product xxx which is now on sale". Anyway, here's the article:

America Online Inc. [NYSE:AOL], in its effort to be "everywhere" with its content and services, has started the "AOL Wireless" division and has appointed Dennis Patrick to lead the subsidiary.

The new division extends on the company's "AOL Anywhere" initiative to have its content available on non-PC devices like wireless phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), AOL spokesperson Anne Bentley told Washtech.com.

Already, AOL has inked deals with partners as diverse as Motorola, Compaq Computer and Hewlett-Packard, in relation to delivering content to wireless devices. The company's pact with Motorola, for example, calls for both companies to develop the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) application to integrate into Motorola's smart wireless devices, including Motorola's WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)-enabled Timeport P1088 smart phone and the Timeport P930 two-way wireless communicator.

AOL's recent purchase of Tegic Communications as well as its pending acquisition of MapQuest.com are called keys to the company's entrance into the wireless world, Bentley said.

As president of AOL Wireless, Patrick will be in charge of operations and gaining new partnerships and initiatives for the world's largest Internet/online service, Bentley said. Patrick has already been serving as senior advisor to AOL President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Pittman on the company's strategy for the delivery of content and services to wireless devices.

Prior to joining Dulles-based AOL, Patrick was president and chief executive officer of Doeg Hill Ventures LLC, a closely held venture- capital company focused on early stage investments in wireless telecommunications business enterprises.
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Via/Cyrix's new "Joshua" CPU: A closer look.
Posted: 02/24/2000     Source: ARS Technica Added by: Kim Heise
One of the ARS Technica team members visited the PR meeting with Via/Cyrix to take a closer look at their new "Joshua" CPU. Read the full review here.

I think the chip stands a good chance of making a dent in the entry level CPU market against Intel and AMD - providing their marketing division can iron out a smooth attack plan.

Let's take a quick peek at the specs:

Microsoft Pocket PC ready for April 2000.
Posted: 02/24/2000     Source: ZDNET Added by: Kim Heise
Microsoft's planned full assault on the 3COM Palm market kicks into high gear this April. Microsoft will be releasing the first models of the MS PocketPC which ships loaded with plenty of features for the price. Prices on these handheld devices start at $199.00. Some of the new features include full MP3 support and Internet Explorer/Outlook Express for internet support.
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Windows 2000 Professional review.
Posted: 02/24/2000     Source: Activewin Added by: Kim Heise
Activewin have posted a detailed 18 page review on Windows 2000 Professional. Very well worth the read if you are interested in adding the new OS to your system.

During the past few months Activewin has been a leader in presenting our readers with the most up to date features and improvements that Windows 2000 has to offer. We are proud to present you all with our full and complete review on the just released Windows 2000 Professional Operating System.

Some may believe Windows 2000 is the successor of Windows 98SE. The fact is that Windows 2000 is the replacement for Microsoft's Windows NT business and network platform. Windows 2000 is a full operating system based on a full NT 32 bit engine that allows high end multi tasking, high security levels, and advanced networking features while still supporting DirectX and all the latest hardware.
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Diamond Viper II video card review.
Posted: 02/24/2000     Source: RizeNet Added by: Kim Heise
It is a pity when a company produces a very powerful new video card but fails to support the new device with stable and regularly updated drivers. The Diamond Viper II (powered by the very impressive Savage 2000 CPU) has full T&L support and performs very respectfully for the price. If you were in the market for a new video card and could not afford the speedy GeForce DDR then I could almost recommend this card if it were not for the drivers. Last I heard, the latest incarnation of the Viper II drivers still did not fully have the T&L support enabled even though the hardware fully supports it.

Anyway, RizeNet has posted a full review of the Diamond Viper II for your reading pleasure. You can read it here.
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Tech News for Wednesday February 23d 2000.

Netscape Communicator 4.72 released.
Posted: 02/23/2000     Source: Netscape  Added by: Kim Heise
Netscape has released Communicator 4.72 for download on their web site. No official information on what's new or what's changed and it's expected to be mostly bug fixes.
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AMD rolls out 550MHz K6-2 chip.
Posted: 02/23/2000     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) Tuesday boosted its K6-2 processor lineup with the introduction of a 550MHz K6-2 chip. The processor accelerates the chip's clock speed over AMD's own 533MHz K6-2 chip as well as Intel Corp.'s (Nasdaq: INTC) 533MHz Celeron. The chip will cost $189 each in 1,000 unit quantities, AMD officials said
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The Seagate Cheetah X15.
Posted: 02/23/2000     Source: Storage Review  Added by: Kim Heise
The next generation hard drives are already starting to surface and Seagate is the first on the block with this speedy 15,000 Rpm 18.5GB HD. The extra Rpm's translate into roughly 26% faster seek times than the current 10,000 Rpm hard drives. Here's the quick rundown on the specs:

18.5 gigs of storage
15,000rpm spindle speed
3.9 millisecond access time
42.5 MB/sec transfer rate
4/16 meg buffer
Q3/00 Availability

Wow! - 3.9ms access time.
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Tech News for Tuesday February 22nd 2000.

This week's CPU prices.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: Tech-Review  Added by: Kim Heise
Tech-Review looks at the latest CPU prices currently available on the market for the week of February 22nd 2000. As usual, this weeks movers and shakers in the CPU world are the high-end AMD K7 CPU's. See for yourself here.
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VIA Technologies Inc. Introduces the VIA Cyrix III Processor.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: Anandtech  Added by: Kim Heise
Via has posted a new press release detailing their new CPU that lines itself up directly against Intel and AMD. Here's the post directly from Anandtech:

VIA Technologies, Inc. Introduces the VIA Cyrix* III Processor for the Value PC Market Breaks Existing Value PC Performance Limitations with 133MHz FSB Support, 256K L2 Cache and Advanced 3DNow! Instructions

With a 64k L1 and 256K L2 cache, the VIA Cyrix*III processor more than doubles the existing level of cache available in Value PC systems, resulting in faster system throughput and better overall system performance. Pricing and Availability The VIA Cyrix* III processor is subcontracted to National Semiconductor and is in production using a .18 micron, 6-layer process. The VIA Cyrix*III processor is priced at $84 for PR500 and $99 for PR533 in 1K quantities. Contact your local VIA Technologies sales office for availability.
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Color Palm Pilots available.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise
With 3COM's new addition to the Palm Pilot family comes the new color Palm IIIc. The new Palm IIIc sports a fancy 256 color display, 11-12 hour re-chargeable battery life and a hefty price tag at $449.00.

Little steep for $449.00 (if you ask me) and it doesn't provide any other new enhancements. Earlier, when the color Palm Pilots were announced there was some mention of a faster CPU but nothing was mentioned in this press release.

Public reaction to the new color Palm Pilot seems mixed.
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The Future of RAM: RDRAM vs. DDR Explained.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: Hardware Central  Added by: Kim Heise
If you are curious about the future of RAM and are as equally as confused as everyone else on what's the difference between RDRAM (Rambus) and DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM, then this article is for you. The article is well worth the read and will explain why the much over-hyped RAMBUS or RDRAM memory hasn't taken the market by storm and why it most likely never will.

Here's some very wise words indeed:

For the time being, neither is an excellent option. We have not yet seen a DDR chipset release, and RDRAM, while available, is far too costly for most users. If you’re looking to build a system within the next month or two at least, standard SDRAM will likely be your only option.

In the meantime, try to stay on top of the issues, and don’t let advertising fool you. Expect to see quite a few confusing numbers floating around, such as PC133, PC266, PC600, PC700, PC800, PC1600, and PC2100. So when you see Intel advertising the new PC800 RDRAM memory, remember that, no, it’s not eight times as fast as PC100 memory. Likewise, when you see PC1600 and PC2100 DDR memory, remember that they’re not two to three times the speed of PC800 memory, regardless of what a salesperson tries to tell you. The plethora of new memory options that will present themselves in the next few months will be enough to overwhelm many potential buyers, so remember to sit back and do your homework before making that important purchase.
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AMD Athlon at heart of Microsoft X-Box spec.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise
Do you remember several weeks back (or was it months) when Microsoft announced the X-Box console system that was to take on the upcoming Sony Playstation 2? Well, the plot thickens: The Register has posted some specs on Microsoft's X-Box and they look very impressive.

An AMD Athlon CPU, a hard drive, DVD ROM and a modified version of Windows will form the other major components of the X-Box, according to sources cited by the IT Network.

The Gigapixel graphics chipset in combination with the Athlon CPU will, apparently, provide the X-Box with enough power to exceed the performance of the Sony PlayStation 2 by six to eight times. Moreover, the Microsoft console will be less expensive and likely to be compatible with existing Windows applications.

Bill Gates is scheduled to introduce X-Box at the upcoming Games Developer Conference in the US next month. The X-Box is meant to be a direct competitor to Sony's PlayStation 2 which is scheduled to be launched in Japan on 4 March.

Gigapixel is a graphics IP company: it licenses only the technology and does not manufacture the chipset. The graphics chip will be manufactured by AMD at its new fabrication plant in Dresden. The same plant is currently producing Athlon CPUs using a 0.18 micron process. 
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State of the computer industry.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: Silicon News  Added by: Kim Heise
Silicon News takes a perspective on today's computer industry and discusses the current CPU wars. It is true that current moves by AMD and Via will cut deep into the market share that Intel has, but I seriously doubt that it will hurt the CPU giant. Think about all the OEMs, the other products besides CPU's and other licenses that Intel holds. What this will do is allow the consumers to have more options which include better products for lower prices.

AMD isn't all Intel has to worry about. VIA/Cyrix should be debuting their Joshua processor, aimed at the low-cost sector occupied by Intel's Celeron, February 22nd. Intel also has to contend with Transmeta and their Crusoe. While the Crusoe is far from being a performance king, it will certainly make a good run at the laptop market where speed isn't everything. Because of its small die size and low power consumption, it will make a good choice for business users who need laptops for light-processing tasks. The Crusoe should also find a niche in the embedded device market, where lots of processing power isn't always needed and battery life is a factor. IBM, another possible competitor, has already done a "proof of concept" type experiment and created a chip from the PowerPC core running at 1.4 GHz. While this chip was integer-only, IBM is revising this chip and adding a floating-point unit, with plans to sell it commercially later this year.
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AMD Athlon K7 overclocking adapter cards.
Posted: 02/22/2000     Source: The Tech Report  Added by: Kim Heise
Overclockng an AMD Athlon CPU is a little more complicated than it is for Intel x86 based CPU's. As far as I understand it, Athlon CPU's are not multiplier locked but you need to attach an adapter card to the secondary bus on the CPU itself to change the multiplier settings.

Tech Report takes the top six Athlon CPU controller cards for a test drive and determines that each one of the adapter cards have unique strengths/weakness and users should decide for themselves as to what features they are looking for.

This is a must read for users wanting to move to an AMD K7 based system and are considering overclocking.

Since we are on the topic of AMD: The Register posted a news clip about AMD's upcoming 933MHz CPU that should cost less than $850 in April
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Tech News for Monday February 21st 2000.

Further AMD price cuts.
Posted: 02/21/2000     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise
AMD is cutting the prices yet again on their Athlon series processors.  Also it appears as if the 550mhz AMD K7 has been discontinued in order to redirect production to the more recent releases.

The Athlon 550 is now terminated. The 600MHz will cost $190, the 650MHz $226, the 700MHz $270, the 750MHz $350, the 800MHz $530 and the top of the range model, the 850MHz Athlon, will cost $750 from next Monday.

Our sources say that AMD is making these moves to help counter Intel's plans to position its Celeron against the Athlon and the K6-2.
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Intel I820 Roadmap.
Posted: 02/21/2000     Source: VirtualZone  Added by: Kim Heise
Take a look a this article over at VirtualZone that takes a look at Intel's upcoming roadmap for the new i820 chipset.

Intel 820 will be using 2+2 configuration ( 2 RIMMs + 2 DIMMs ) right up to middle of year 2001. With the launch of Camino 2 in Q2 this year, it will support 2+2 config. initally right up to end of 2001. Regarding the Camino chipset, Intel will incorporate ICH2 and CNR technology into it. ICH2 will be used on Camino2 and Solano2 boards with ATA-100 interface and 4 USB support. For the Future Camino chipset which will be launched in Q2 2001, future I/O enhancements will take place. Possible enhancements are likely to be Serial ATA where Serial ATA 1X to be available in mid 2001 and offer 1.5 gigabits/sec that is 150MB/s.
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Tech News for Saturday February 19th 2000.

64MB GeForce DDR.
Posted: 02/19/2000     Source: SharkyExtreme  Added by: Kim Heise
What do you do with 64MB of RAM on a video card? Most current video games wouldn't even begin to use that much memory but high end business graphics systems (AutoCAD) could use the extra breathing space. I'm very surprised to see how cheap the card is at $356.00 USD for the 64MB version, considering my Creative Annihilator Pro was $310.00 USD with tax.

Dell has revealed to us their plans for a new GeForce 256 sporting 64MB of DDR SGRAM, twice that which can be found in any other SDR or DDR GeForce available today. This new GeForce 256 will be available as an option to new Dell Dimension purchasers. The card itself will carry a $356 price tag, which may seem hefty but when compared to a $900 NVIDIA Quadro with the 64MB (The Elsa GLoria II uses 64MB of SDR SDRAM) it looks more reasonable. The card, which will be launched as an add-on for new Dell systems, will be available for only a short period beginning Monday February 21st and lasting until the middle of March.

According to Dell, who allocated 50 of their own engineers to the project, manufacturing of the card has been outsourced to an unnamed OEM. This card is not what you'd call an OEM-lite version. With a DVI support for Dell's Flat Panels and 64MB of memory, it has the makings of the gamer's "card of choice" for the next while. Dell engineers are hoping that the extra memory will push the envelope even further, allowing gamers to turn on the graphical features and push up the resolution without the performance hit that you would otherwise get with 32MB. They claim a 28% to 32% increase between an SDR GeForce and their 64MB DDR board in their own in-house benchmarks.
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New nVidia Detonator  3.77 drivers available.
Posted: 02/19/2000     Source: 3D Chipset  Added by: Kim Heise
3DChipset has somehow tracked down the latest reference beta Detonator drivers for nVidia based video cards. Download the Windows 9x version here.
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Faster USB ports on the roadmap.
Posted: 02/19/2000     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise
Saw this interesting article over at TechWeb that talks about USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 that should be introduced around Christmas 2000.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Version 2.0 of the Universal Serial Bus is on track for introduction by the Christmas 2000 selling season, according to Intel executives speaking at the Intel Developer Forum this week. The latest rev of the USB spec will support data-transfer rates of 480 Mbits/second for peripherals connected to a system.

USB 2.0 is about 40 times faster than the USB 1.1 specification. With data rates of 60 Mbytes/s, transfers that previously took five minutes will take less than 10 seconds.
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Hitechbits Overclocking Guide Updated.
Posted: 02/19/2000     Source: N/A  Added by: Kim Heise
Thank you for all the feedback regarding the overclocking article. I have made some minor modifications based on several suggestions from my good friend Lance. More additions will be added shortly.

The updates address some clarification of certain terms and more information under the "Tips & Tricks" section. The articles has been updated to v1.1.
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