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| Nehalem to support only DDR3 | | | | Intel has revealed to the world that the upcoming Nehalem generation of processors will only support DDR3 memory. As the memory controller is now in the CPU and the Northbridge as we knew it from Intel’s past and present will cease to exist, it won't be that easy to change the memory controller in order to support DDR2.
As Nehalem launches as high performance desktop part and a workstation/server part in Q4 2008, the DDR3 prices are likely to come down to more acceptable rates.
Currently DDR3 can't compete compared to ultra cheap DDR2 memory and motherboard manufacturers are still making high-end X48 motherboards with DDR2 support.
| | | Nvidia's 55nm to come on June | | | | Nvidia should have its 55nm chips ready in Q2, and to be more precise, on June.
As of today, Nvidia's 55nm chip looks like an advanced and die shrunk version of its well-known G92 chip.
At least Nvidia can show the world that it can do it, but this will occur more than six months after ATI managed to launch its first 55nm chip. In the meantime, all ATI chips are 55nm, while Nvidia is still at 65nm.
| | | Upcoming AMD CPU launch schedule | | | | AMD is planning to launch B3 stepping quad-core Phenom 9050 series CPUs including 9850, 9750, 9650, 9550 and 9150 within the next 1-2 weeks, however the top-end 9850 will only reach a core frequency of 2.5GHz, instead of the original goal of 2.6Ghz. The company expects to be able to deliver higher core frequencies in the third quarter this year.
AMD will later launch triple-core Phenom 8750, 8650 and 8450 CPUs with power consumption of 65W in late April. Prior to that, the company will launch the Athlon 64 X2 5800+ to fill the gap in the mainstream market.
| | | Intel X48 motherboards start shipping | | | | Delayed by a couple of months, the X48 chipset and motherboards powered by it are now finally starting to be delivered. Initially expected in January, x48 boards are set to be the highest-end Intel-based offer for LGA77 CPUs and they come with DDR3-1600 memory and FSB 1600 MHz support.
Since next week Nvidia will officially introduce the nForce 790i SLI and 790i SLI Ultra, the main rivals of its new chipsets, Intel didn't have much choice so it has given motherboard manufacturer the thumbs up to start shipping products based on X48. First to become available are likely to be boards from Asus and Gigabyte but MSI, DFI will follow soon.
| | | New high-end widescreen monitors from Samsung | | | | Taking advantage of its presence at the Press and Reseller Summit in New York, Samsung Electronics America has released four new high-end monitors, all bearing the SyncMaster brand. The fresh additions are the 953BW (19"), 2053BW (20"), 2253LW and 2253BW (both 22" models) and they are set to offer a good combination between good looks and specs.
The new LCDs feature a slick design with crystal edges and piano-black glossy finish plus 8,000:1 dynamic contrast ratios, low response times (5ms for the 953BW, 2ms G2G for the rest), MagicColor intelligent color control which allow for enhanced image customization and DVI with HDCP interfaces. The native resolutions of the new widescreens go from 1440x900 pixels (953BW) to 1680x1050 (for the 2053BW, 2253LW and 2253BW).
Backed up by three-year warranties the SyncMaster 953BW, 2053BW, 2253LW and 2253BW are priced at $239, $299, $319 and $349 respectively.
| | | Bioshock 2 announced | | | | The publisher confirmed that such a game is in development at 2K Marin. Made by 2K Boston and 2K Australia and released for the PC and Xbox 360, BioShock has sold over 2 million copies so it comes to no surprise that a new episode is in the works.
With Kevin Levine still involved in the project, BioShock 2 will be released in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 which goes from August until October 31st 2009. The platforms for which it will be available have not been announced.
| | | nVidia's new card to come by Q3? | | | | Nvidia's big 65nm chip is going to launch in Q3 or possibly even later. Nvidia is about to launch the Geforce 9800 GX2, its dual chip G92GTS card and after that it plans to launch a product codenamed GT200.
Some call this card the D10E (Desktop 10th generation Enthusiast) and it is likely that Nvidia might brand this product as Geforce 10.
The earliest we believe that Nvidia can launch its GT200 / G100 / D10E is in late Q3, but don't be surprised if it slips to early Q4 2008.
| | | Rainbow Six Vegas 2 delayed for PC | | | | Although a clear reason why hasn't been given Ubisoft has confirmed that the PC version of Rainbox Six Vegas 2 will not be released together with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. Coming with a few new and updated features Vegas 2 builds on the success of its predecessor and was initially slated for a March 28 release on all three major platforms.
While console players will get it on time, PC owners will have to wait for Rainbow Six Vegas 2 until April 17.
| | | Intel's last FSB chip coming this year, the six-core Dunnington | | | | It has not been a secret that 2008 will ring in the end of the front side bus at Intel. The company's Nehalem (chip coming after Dunnington) follows in the footsteps of AMD's K8 architecture (Opteron/Athlon 64), which introduced the Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) and Direct Connect Bus (HyperTransport), which provides offers a complex design that, in theory, represents the most efficient CPU design available today.
However, before the FSB will disappear for good, there will be one more siginificant chip using this structure: Meet Dunnington, Intel's first native multi-core chip. If AMD's definition of "multi-core" is correct, then "multi" indicates a number greater than two (three-core AMD Phenom 8000 series, four-core Phenom 9000, etc). In that case, Intel is set to offer 50% more cores than AMD currently has.
According to a leaked presentation, Dunnington will be last CPU coming out of the Penryn generation and will surface as a single-die six-core chip. This processor is geared for high-integrated systems such as blade servers. Socket-wise, the CPU uses mPGA604 and is pin-to-pin compatible with Tigerton.
Release date is second half of this year, or just a nice warm-up for a monster we known under the codename Nehalem.
Here's a processor overview sheet if your wanna take a look at the upcoming 6 core specs.
| | | | | | Samsung ups resolution of upcoming 22 inch monitor | | | | To our good fortune Samsung has apparently grown tired with the low resolution of the SyncMaster 2243BW (1680x1050) so it will be soon bringing the 2243BWP. One little letter (the P) will make a big difference though as the widescreen LCD has a resolution of 2048x1152 pixels.
Resolution and price aside, the 2243BWP has the same specs ad capabilities of its older brother. Samsung will start shipping the 2243BWP in Q2.
Specs on the current 2243BW are: 22" wide, 300 cd/m² brightness, 5ms response time, 8000:1(1000:1) constrast ratio, viewing angle of 170º/160º (CR>10).
| | | GeForce 9800GX2, 9800GTX get the greenlight | | | | The long awaited high-end successor to NVIDIA's wildly popular GeForce 8800 series is almost upon us.
Those anticipating a new architecture, unfortunately, will have to sit this generation out. The core logic used in the GeForce 9800GX2 and GeForce 9800GTX is none other than the 65nm G92 core found on the GeForce 8800GT, though all 128 shaders are enabled -- opposed to the 112 found on last year's G92.
NVIDIA's GeForce 9800GX2 is poised as the ultra high-end enthusiast graphics card. The new adapter takes a page from the GeForce 7950GX2 since it's actually composed of two G92 cores on a single board. Factories are instructed to set these core frequency at 600 MHz and memory frequencies at 2000 MHz.
The GeForce 9800GX2 uses a dual-slot cooling fan. Reference designs of this card include twin DVI outputs and a single HDMI port.
In addition to the GeForce 9800GX2, NVIDIA will lift the embargo on the nForce 790i chipset. nForce 790i is essentially the same as nForce 780i, but with support for 45nm quad-core Intel processors and DDR3 memory.
One week later, on March 25, NVIDIA will lift its embargo on the GeForce 9800GTX. Partners are instructed to pull out all the stops on the G92 silicon, unlocking the core frequency to 675 MHz and the memory frequency to 2200 MHz. Reference designs of this card include twin DVI outputs and no HDMI options.
The new feature on the 9800GTX is the inclusion of two SLI interfaces on the top of the card for three-way SLI support.
Also on the March 25, NVIDIA will announce its nForce 780a and 750a chipsets.
| | | | | | Bourne Conspiracy coming this summer | | | | I haven't read Mr. Ludlum's novels, but I have seen the Bourne movies, and this new Bourne game looks heavily influenced by them. The game's hand-to-hand combat was overseen by the fight cheorgrapher from the flicks, and choices for camera angles in the game also have a cinematic feel to them as well.
Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy is being developed by High Moon Studios, and is being published by Sierra. It will be for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and is coming out sometime near the end of summer '08.
Further info, can be found here.
| | | THQ innovating or out of ideas? | | | | THQ announces first cheerleading video game. Whether this is innovation or simply a testament to the lack of inspiration in the gaming industry but THQ has now announced All Star Cheer Squad, a cheerleading game for the Nintendo Wii and DS.
In All Star Cheer Squad, players will follow a year in the life of a cheerleader as they learn new cheers, participate in practices and create their own routines to make the squad and eventually become captain. High-energy gameplay includes squad competitions and one-on-one cheer-offs, where players will use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to perform dozens of real-world cheer and dance moves.
The Wii version of the upcoming game will make use of the Wii Balance Board to get the player’s entire body involved in the game while the DS version will just stress your fingers.
All Star Cheer Squad will be released this fall.
| | | New Quad-Cores coming out this week. | | | | As you know, the shipments of 45nm quad-core Core 2 Quad processors were delayed due to issues with processor system bus discovered in them. These Yorkfield processors on the new C1 stepping that would be free from this problem were expected to arrive in early March. According to sources, the new processor went into mass production exactly as planned and this week we should see 45nm Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 in retail stores already. The mass production processors will be based solely on C1 stepping, which doesn't have any changes to its thermal, electrical or mechanical specifications compared with the previous C0 processor stepping that is used widely in dual-core Wolfdale processors these days.
| | | Quad-SLI driver expected this month. | | | | Nvidia will launch its Geforce 9800GX2 on the 18th of March and on the same day it will ship the Quad-SLI driver.
The driver should scale well on both DirectX 10 and DirectX 9 games, and this time Nvidia made it work. The last time the company tried to do Quad-SLI, it didn’t go that well, as the scaling and performance were not there.
This time around, it will scale well and it should score well.
| | | Epic Games founder says that PCs are bad for games | | | | Speaking to the TG Daily editor, Tim Sweeney the founder and CEO of Epic Games, said that PCs mostly don't deliver that amount of performance that you would expect to justify their cost. He said that you have to pay twice as much money for 30 per cent more performance. Here's a little highlight of their talk:
TG Daily: But we mostly talk about conventional retail sales. Do you see an increasing divide between the Pc and consoles?
Sweeney: Retail stores like Best Buy are selling PC games and PCs with integrated graphics at the same time and they are not talking about the difference [to more capable gaming PCs]. Those machines are good for e-mail, web browsing, watching video. But as far as games go, those machines are just not adequate. It is no surprise that retail PC sales suffer from that. Online is different, because people who go and buy games online already have PCs that can play games. The biggest problem in this space right now is that you cannot go and design a game for a high end PC and downscale it to mainstream PCs. The performance difference between high-end and low-end PC is something like 100x.
You can read part one of the full interview here.
| | | | | | Intel's 32nm production plans on track. | | | | Intel's 45nm CPUs have barely begun to penetrate all major market segments but the company is increasingly looking towards the future and that means 32nm. The announcement of the first working 32nm chips was made at the IDF in September (2007) while last week Intel has reconfirmed on its intention to start production of 32nm chips in 2009.
| | | Sims 3 is coming. | | | | This might be the third sign of the coming of the Apocalypse but we never though we could ever escape them. Yes, the cute wannabe us characters known as Sims will start a third invasion and the first details about it will come on March 19.
| | | New StarCraft 2 pictures surfaced. | | | | The new 4 StarCraft 2 pictures come in the possible wake of the release of in-depth details about the Zerg, and showcase some serious battles between the Terran and Protoss factions. Check out the 4 pictures bellow:
1st picture
2nd picture
3rd picture
4th picture
| | | Unreal Tournament 3 | | | | There seems to be a hold up with legal on the linux server for Unreal Tournament 3. Once this is taken care of and they release it for the public we will put up a server for everyone to enjoy. If you have ideas on how you want the server please post in the forums and let us know.
We will be looking for clans to help us run all our new servers so if your interested in running the servers with our rules then post on the forums.
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Posted by acec
