Top Spec

The next generation Core i7 processor is around the corner. Motherboard manufacturers will be rolling out a selection of x58 processors motherboards over the next couple of weeks.

Gigabytes has two current solutions, the high end EX58 EXTREME and then toned down EX58 UD5. Both boards come with all Core i7’s goodies including the fsb within the processor using QuickPath Interconnect QPI, a rip of AMDs version?

The boards provide three PCI-e slots at x16 speed! The motherboards support both Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire. The extreme version comes with a copper base and introduces a silent pipe 2 which is the towering heat sink you see above.

The mobo looks promising and brings new technology to the table. I’m guessing that manufacturers are taking advantage of using new technology so then introduce new cooling solutions to follow suite.

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Samsung has demonstrated a OLED full HD TV! Samsung did however admit that the technology was being stretched to its full capabilities, pushing current technology to achieve their result.

The 40″ TFT panel is the largest size they can create and its cannot be mass produced, a prototype so to speak! The company explained how the mass production of this product just cannot be done at this time and only 31″ panels can be created.

The Panel produces 1920 x 1080 resolution and has a contrast ratio of a million to one. The current dimension of this panel is only 8.9mm thick, one of the key features of using OLED.

Sony are currently creating an 11″ version and samsung have set their self the target of a 40″ panel and hopefully dominate the market on release.

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So the latest P.C game on the market today is what? anyone? Well I’ll tell you! Its Far Cry 2! So as you have probably guessed it the latest game means a new benchmarking tool for your system. So today I want to briefly look into what the top graphics cards from ati and nvidia have to offer in terms of pure performance.

After checking benchmarks with high res of 2000+ so the top cars are easily thoroughly tested. The result across the graphics cards seemed to be average of around 40 to 50 fps. Like with crysis there are no high fps or v-sync moments here. So the ATI 4870 x2 and the 280 nvidia cards are not really worth the cash!

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What is Ink Toner? Well the toner is a power used in laser printers usually within enterprice environements, the toner is used to print text, images onto paper.

In the initial stages toner was simply carbon power but improvments to printing quality was needed so the carbon power was mixed with a polymer. Toner particles are then melted under thermal heat which binds the colour to the paper.

Earlier printing machines had a built in reservoir that contained toner, this was easily refilled today, modern machines feed directly from a cartridge/ ink toner that can be bought from third party sources.
Toner was traditionally made by combining ingredients and creating a compound which was broken down and then turned into a fine powder. The fine power was a controlled particle size range which was achieved by air jet milling. The milling process would then create toner granules with carrying sizes and shapes, not ideal for any printing process. To achieve a finer print some manufactures would use a chemical process to grow toner particles. The process would result in a more uniform size and toner particle size, making printing easier and increasing quality making more efficient toner use.

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I was doing some research recently into graphics cards, the current top specification boards at what prices. I looked at ATI’s best offering the radeon 4870 x2 priced around 360+ mark. Then I thought about looking at my current but old graphics card the x800 xt pe. The x800 xt pe was basically the xt with some manufacturer overclocking, little did I know that after years of having the card they were known for over heating! After installing a third party heat sink I was good to go, but for how long? Well taking the current version of directx is around 10/ 10.1 It wasn’t a matter of overheating but the actual capabilities of the graphics card.

Anyway before I carry on going on about my hardware wish list I wanted to point out the current price of the x800 xt pe! I found the card for 350 GBP. Was this a mistake? I cant see this as value for money!

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A fellow over at Intel has been slating the ARM processor! The ARM processor is a British engineered processor, which I didn’t know untill shortly before this blog post. But why would Intel be against the mobile processor chip manufacturer? Well lets put it this way, its not where the processor is from.

Arm provide the chips that power the Apple’s iphone and million of mobile users across the world! Not to mention up-coming phones such as the G1 another big contender. But, the main reason behind Intels jealousy! is obviously because their mobile processors are only affecting half a dozen mobile units!

The Intel guy has also stated that the shortcoming of the iphone (what short comings) are not because of the Apple but because of the ARM processor, hmmm I would like to differ.

Intel for some reason state that if you want a fulfilled internet experience then a x86 processor is needed and as the enquirer states, “no matte r how many times an Intel member of staff says this, it just isn’t true!”. so true!

Some interesting additions you must read!

Intel actually mad3e ARM based chips and gave up this right in 2006. They sold the business on to Marvell and as you have guessed it, regretted it ever since.

Again, Intel are spitting out their dummy because the firm is now forced into the low cost, low margin markets.  With Intel usually taking 80, 80 % of the market share they are reluctant to go down the ARM route.

I feel Intel are having  a Deja Vu moment. What happened with AMD? Intell had alot of competition but now have secured the market place yet again with their enthusiast based systems.

Intel remind me of Microsoft, a cold blooded company that try to dominate the market, company’s like ARM and AMD should stay in the game because its these company’s that help give us enthusiast an alternative! But if you want scalability then Intel is the way, for mobile well ARM is your choice and stay with it!

Soon as Intel move into the mobile sector which they haven’t covered properly It looks like Windows vista mobile will be shortly waiting. BUT! at the same time the current mobile which use microsoft technology just don’t cut it!

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Microsoft has official called today ‘global anti-piracy day’. In other words Microsoft has enforcement actions in 49 countries in six continents. Microsoft is trying to create anti-piracy efforts across countries and continents through a sophisticated system of business intelligence forensics and education. Interesting.

Together Microsoft think that by working together to identify an international connection points between software pirates and counterfeiters will help stop them in their tracks in return protecting consumers and legitimate business, obviously microsoft’s consumer! hmm

To me yet another way of asking microsoft consumers to download or install microsoft based software at a fee and unfortunately all managed by microsoft.

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AMD has its monthly driver release, Octobers driver launch the v8.10 introduces a useful feature. Any one who downloads the driver will be able to control the speed of their Radeon HD 4000 series CPU fan. Any one remember using third party software to change fan speeds?

If XML isnt your thing then you can use the new software which will allow you to change the fan setting by a click of a button. The release brings radeon display drivers up to version 8.541 and unlike previous releases the driver also comes with a performance increase. Radeon users of the 3000 and 4000 series can expect a 15% increase in performance!

If you have crossfire configuration then you can expect a 5% increase, happy days!

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Speculation or not but the topic does get you thinking! Apparently by 2012 ISP’s will reduce Internet access to a tv like subscription model, offering access to a small amount of news, entertainment websites. To visit other based websites, say third party (your bookmarks) an extra fee will be introduced for the privilege. The result would mean the smaller websites would eventually shut down, creating the end of the internet? Hmm lets look into this!

Advantages (if any)

Content, limited channels
Content is restricted to official websites, content is then guaranteed to be 100% safe and 100% correct. The down side would be the need to pay for the services, squashing competition which in my opinion is completely the opposite of how the Internet should be. thats about it

Disadvantages

Hackz0rs
Hackers R’ Us! I’m sure it wont take long before someone or something breaks the model and allows users to have pirate access to these websites or website that are not even on the Internet.

A new breed
Whats stopping programmers creating their very own protocol and port which allows websites to be viewed differently to how ISP’s allow you to! Could there be multiple Internets running on different communication methods/ ports.

World Wide!
This would need to be a world wide affair, whats happens when the US decide to limit their population to certain websites, does that mean in another country I could visit the so called normal Internet? Would capping the internet to tens of sites be a breach of privacy or the United Kingdoms right of free speach?

An interesting topic but will all those webmasters out there be wasting their time optimising for the likes of google, yahoo etc. Will google even exist? If so how will their services and tools be used? Untill next time, goodbye

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I have recently found bargain laptops but I was quite surprised to see that manufacturer x was not selling Atom based processors for budget bases mobile computation. The company was advertising dual core Intel processors and Celeron budget type processors for mobile technology, ok ok so this is what they do but where are these Atom processors?

I’m not sure if its the fact that the processor is new and manufacturers are reluctant to snap up the chips but if I remember correctly the processor sold like hot cakes so they could be used for mobile computing in third world countries and households across the world.

I have seen these laptops with the Atom technology cropping up here and there but they still use linux based operating systems because it uses less resources than windows xp. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that these processors were in-fact high speed and capable of running windows xp flawlessly unlike the older Asus  EEE PC using a Pentium 1 processor. I must of been mistaken in thinking the Atom will be used for mobile computing like any other laptop but micro. There is always a catch!

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