AMD bought ATI and that seems to be going (not) well for them. Doesn’t it make sense that NVidia would make the same move for that other company that makes processors (it isn’t Intel)? It could be so with rumours growing momentum.
It makes good business for NVidia to make the same move their competitors are making. Companies like 3DFX missed the bandwagon when they didn’t implement the right technologies at the right time (onboard 2D render). With the world going CPUGPU, it makes sense that NVidia would be looking to do the same thing.
Imagine an UMPC with a low power VIA processor and with incredible graphics processing of a NVidia chip. If they could keep the price down, they could make some invincible portable and micro hybrid technologies.
For more info, spy over at Engadget.
It has been rumoured for a while, but only moments ago is it official. There are new Macbooks and Macbook Pro’s on the Apple block, and they got some handy, but not life changing updates. The biggest one is the introduction of the Air’s Multi-Touch pad to the whole Macbook range and the updated processors to Intels flagship Penryn series.
They’re also getting a much more powerful graphics processor, with the introduction of the sweet new Nvidia 8600GT with 512mb of memory onboard, on all the new Pro’s. The new top end processor is the beastly 2.6 GHz processor with 6MB of shared L2 cache.
The rest of the package is pretty standard affair, but is nice to see Apple rolling out the Multi-Touch feature to its minions. Starting from $US1,099, the new Macbooks are available from the Apple website immediately.
For a whole lot more info, click over to Apple Insider.
It seems like Ageia wasn’t as useless as people first thought. NVidia are looking to buy out Ageia, who are the creators of the infamous Physx standalone physics cards.
NVidia have said the reason for the move is to create “the world’s most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce®-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world.” Considering game developers are still very sceptical about the purpose of a PPU (Physics Processors Unit), it may just be a big ol waste of time.
For more info, click over to Engadget.
It seems that the 9 series of the famous Geforce series of video processors isn’t going to be the end all of graphics power. That at least is the case in the 9600 GT.
The guys over at ExpReview have sneaked what seems to be a reference board from Nvidia and ran some 3DMark 06 tests on it. They tested the 9600 along side a 8800 GS and GT. What were the results? The card ran very similar scores the 8800 GS, but is still edged over by the 8800 GT.
The card is going to be faster then the current 8600 by a decent chunk, at least in 3dMark. The deal breaker could be the price point, because in the stat’s this card is going against the ATi 3870, which is already available and cheap. It will be much more interesting to see what the other 9 series cards benchmarks get, at the moment though, don’t expect it to be mind blowing.
For more info, jump over to The Inquirer.
It seems the GX2 has skipped a generation, landing in the 9 series Geforce’s instead of the current 8 series. Imagine if you took two 8800’s fabricated on the 65nm design (think 8800GT) and slapped together on a beastly PCIeX card. What you get is a card that should be 30% faster then a 8800 Ultra, with the option of running in Quad SLI for even more speed (maybe even Hex SLI?). Should really have been called the 8800 GX2, but who really cares?
For more info, click over to the Engadget Blog.
We had a little view of the M1730 before its recent release and now we have gotten wind of another new notebook for the ever growing XPS range of Dell’s. This will be a little smaller and a hell of a lot lighter then the 1730, with a 15-4-inch screen and slot loading DVD/Blu-Ray Drive.
Unfortunately this model won’t support dual video processors, but it will come with a choice of 2 decent nVidia’s as long as you don’t expect to play to many new games on them. The choices will be either a GeForce 8400M or 8600M GS with up to 256MB of video ram.
Otherwise it is standard affair with a 15.4-inch screen with either a CCFL up to 1680 x 1050 or LED up to 1440 x 900, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.5 - 2.6 GHz (T5250 to T7800), options for 802.11a/b/g/n, WWAN, Bluetooth, finger print reader, built-in webcam and a HDMI port (I will report this until it is standard). It will apparently weigh 4 pounds, but will wait for final word before seeing that as feasible in such a feature rich notebook. No price yet, but should be announced on November 7th.
For more info, travel over to the Engadget Blog.
Remember the heavy weight notebook we talked about a few days ago? The expensive but powerful Dell XPS M1730? Well you can now order it from the Dell website for a sweet starting price of $US2999.
For more info, click over to Dell silly.
Do you live in an apartment that is the size of jimmy the crickets matchbox home but feel that console gaming is repetitive and growing old? Well you need to get yourself an ultra mean desktop replacement notebook, like, lets say, the new Dell XPS M1730. It’s simply a beast with a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 processor (800MHz FSB and 4MB cache), 2GB 667MHz DDR2 memory (4GB for an additional $US375), 2 x 200GB 7200RPM disks, DVD burner (upgradeable for Blu-ray playback for an additional $US550), dual 512MB nVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT with nVIDIA SLI, AGEIA™ PhysX™ Physics Accelerator, 802.11a/g/n WiFi and a neat 17-inch WUXGA. All this for the tiny price of $US4,192. Wait a second that isn’t tiny at all! You could buy yourself a bigger apparent with that cash people! Other then the possible weight of around 3000Kg’s and the battery life of negative 2 hrs, it will at least be able to run Crysis at 1024×768 with everything on extreme (I hope). Not yet released but considering you can already buy it on the Dell Website, it shouldn’t be long now.
For more info, teleport over to the Engadget Website.
For older readers of this site (before the refresh) you will know I am a huge Vaio fanboy. Matter of fact I am writing this article on one of the first 13.3-inchers released in Australia (cost $4,000). So I am very happy to announce a few range refreshers from Sony, which include a G2 replacement, an update to the desktop replacement’s titled the L series and a big fat AR series notebook.
The G2 is an ultralight, with a 12.1-inch display and low power processor. The changes between this model and the previous are the two choices of the new Intel low power processors (U7600 and U7500), choice of 3 different SSD’s (32/48/64GB) as well as a few normal HDD’s, and lastly the choice of 3 colours. No prices as yet, but expect the SSD driven variants to be a little pricier then standard HDD. The release date is set in October for Japan only.
The L series desktop replacement is a sort of iMac competitor (better in my opinion). Previously the L series “The Panel PC” was only a 15.4-inch (in Australia anyway), but the new series includes a 15.4-inch (LJ with 1280 x 800 resolution), 19-inch (LM with 1440 x 900 resolution) and 22-inch (LT with 1680 × 1050 resolution) version. Also included in the package is a range of Intel Core 2 Duo CPU’s and a NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT video card. They will range in 3 different colours, which are silver, black and pink (very metro). Release date is set as October the 6th and the pricing will start at $US1478 for the baby, all the way up to $3218 for the big daddy.
Finally we have the sexy 17-incher from Sony. The AR600 will be the replacement for the now aging AR500 series. Upgrades include 8400M GT or 8600M GT NVIDIA video card’s, Core 2 Duo T7250 or T7500 processors and a sweet Blu-ray and CableCard mix. They are expected to be seen around October the 2nd and will range in price from $US1,700 to $US3,300.
For more info, steal a plane and fly over to Gizmodo’s Blog, Engadget’s Blog and Akihabara News Site.