How many times has it been said that tablets are the latest “fad”? Countless times, actually. Everyone from high profile CEOs to tech blogs just like GS have made the claim. The common claim is that in the end, people really want a powerful desktop/laptop for their hardcore computing needs. And when they don’t, the often herald savior of traditional desktop computing, the netbook, would fill the void.
Microsoft announced tonight via the company website that they and Toyota will host a joint press conference tomorrow to unveil something new and exciting. No idea what they’re going to announce. It could be some fancy new in-car computer system. Or… it could be the revealing of a new Toyota Scion Windows Phone 7 theme…
WebOS hasn’t really taken off in popularity as some other mobile alternatives have to date. But as we see it, that’s mainly because of a lack of exciting hardware or worthwhile hardware updates thus far. Now that Leo Apotheker is at the helm, however, things are quickly turning around. Take for example a claim made by Apotheker today, stating that every HP PC will be able to run the webOS experience by next year. This is but one bold claim made by a man who’s already far surpassed his rather useless predecessor, Mark Hurd, in a mere fraction of the time.
HP has a media event set for March 14th in which we’ll learn a good deal more about HP’s upcoming plans. Check back soon…
Hardware giant, Western Digital, is about to get a bit more muscle in the fight against competing hard drive manufacturer, Seagate. Today, March 7th, 2011, WD announced that they were purchasing Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for ~$4.3 billion USD. In total, $3.5 billion in cash as well as $750 million worth of shares will trade hands. According to Western Digital CEO, John Coyne, scale is the sole source behind the purchase, citing the need for more size and R&D spending to combat rival Seagate. The CEO also hopes to offer a greater selection of products for consumers under the WD brand, further increasing the company’s own value.
PC enthusiasts have an exciting March to look forward to. Not only is Nvidia’s dual-GPU 590 rumored to be dropping later in the month, but AMD’s own dual-GPU solution (6990) will be coming even earlier — rumored to be as soon as March 8th. Currently, AMD is said to be finalizing the SKU and planning to have partners ready to go for an official release by said date.
For those not well versed in the land of computer hardware, “dual-GPU” in regards to the 6990 (and GTX 590) simply means that their are two GPU cores on one PCB. (Essentially two graphics cards crammed on to one.) This not only allows uses with smaller cases to save space, but also makes tri- and quad-GPU configurations easier and more energy efficient.
Official pricing hasn’t been released yet, but we’d expect the 6990 to ding your banking account between $600-$700. Expensive — yes. But for those who want only the fastest, it is the only option.
AMD 6990 officially outed. Specs, price, and specific release date still unknown.
PC enthusiasts and custom PC builders will be pleased to know the Intel/Sandy Bridge nightmare will soon be over. ASUS announced via their company site that the new B3 P67 motherboards with properly working Intel SATA II controllers will begin shipping this week.
Owners of pre-built computers from manufacturers such as HP, Dell, and so on have had the option of Sandy Bridge powered hardware due to various business dealings between said companies and Intel in which disabling the affected ports was noted as a viable option. The announcement by ASUS however, marks the first P67 hardware available for sale since the “non-recall” several weeks back.
So how will consumers know for sure the board they’re getting isn’t a gimped B2 version? Easy — the retail packaging and motherboard itself will feature very clear, easy to read branding as seen above.
For those looking to build a new SB computer, the announcement couldn’t come sooner. Check out ASUS’ press announcement after the break…
Within the last couple of weeks, the minimum specs for Crysis were made public. While it gave us a good glimpse as to what would be required of our machines to power the latest and greatest Crytek has to offer, it didn’t tell us much in the sense that minimum requirements are often low-balled. Recommended specs are what really matter. Unfortunately, thus far Crytek has been pretty tight lipped about said requirements. Until now. Well, Crytek still isn’t actually saying anything, but fellow tech site VR-Zone is. They claim to have the recommended specs in the bag. As seen above, Crysis 2 is still a very power hungry game, but not in the same context as it was back in 2007. These days, a Core 2 Duo and Nvidia 280/ATI 4870 aren’t exactly “high-end”. Nevertheless, the true test will be running the final version of the game on our systems to see the results for ourselves.
We’ll definitely be picking up Crysis 2. You?
Intel may be going some rough times with a massive Sandy Bridge reacall, but that doesn’t mean the platform is weak. Not by a long shot. Since the hardware’s release back in early January, people have been hitting some pretty crazy overclocks from the 2500K and 2600K chips. On a more personal note, I’ve been able to push my 2600K up to 4.7GHz with very little time spent on actual tweaking settings in the bios. But my chip isn’t “the golden chip” that so few lucky souls receive. One such lucky soul however, took his 2600K to a blistering 5.794GHz on air, and managed an even more impressive 5.804GHz on water. The image above is all that was provided for the higher oc. The slightly lower, air-cooled overclock comes with a CPU-Z validation. Still think Sandy Bridge is a wash?
Usually, such high overclocks are only seeing when exotic cooling (read: liquid nitrogen) is used. To be able to hit the speeds listed above on air and water cooling is a rather impressive feat.
Hey folks. We’re live in beautiful Las Vegas at ASUS’ pre-CES keynote. There’s plenty of good stuff coming your way. Hop on past for the show…
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