Zune HD
Microsoft is introducing the fourth generation of its digital media player devices today, September 15th, 2009. Taking center stage is Zune HD, a product positioned as a direct rival for Apple’s iPod touch, and which is now available for purchase via retail channels. Zune HD models have been available for pre-order since the first half of August 2009. The 16GB flavor of Zune HD costs $219.99, while the Zune HD 32GB features a price of $289.99. At the end of the past week, leaked video demonstrations/advertisements of Zune HD offered an insight into what the digital media player brings to the market.
“Our research indicates that there’s strong consumer demand for dedicated media players and Zune HD offers visible differentiation in this market,” noted Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret LLC. “Microsoft is also offering some compelling software and services with the Zune ecosystem that will help Zune HD stand out from other offerings.”
Read more
NVIDIA GeForce 185.81 Beta Drivers
Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA has recently introduced a new series of GeForce graphics drivers with a new Beta release of their 185 series. The new release offers support for all of the company’s latest graphics accelerators, including the most recent GeForce GTX 275, as well as other previously-released GeForce cards, part of NVIDIA’s GeForce 6, 7, 8 and 9-series of desktop GPUs. In addition, according to the release notes of the new GeForce drivers, users of NVIDIA graphics accelerators will be able to take advantage of a series of performance increases.
The company’s new GeForce Driver release 185.81 Beta includes support for its latest GeForce GTX 275 graphics processing unit, as well as a number of new features. According to the release notes, users upgrading their drivers to the latest beta release will be provided with support for Ambient Occlusion, a new setting in the NVIDIA Control Panel, CUDA 2.2, for better performance in GPU-enabled applications, and expanded support in the NVIDIA Video Encoding library for GPUs that use less than 32 cores. Read more
NVIDIA Is Still the King of Graphics
Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA is reported to have recorded an impressive first quarter in 2009, as the company managed to maintain its position as the number one GPU vendor on the market. The news comes after earlier reports, according to which Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices grabbed a market share of approximately 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008. However, NVIDIA now claims that its market share has increased to an impressive 68 percent, compared to the company’s results in the fourth quarter of 2008.
According to a recent news-article on bit-tech, citing sources from research firms Mercury Research and Jon Peddie Research, NVIDIA succeeded in increasing its market share by 0.3%, in Q1 2009. Read more
Windows 7 ATI Catalyst 9.3 Unified Driver
AMD is ready for the RTM release of Windows 7. Or at least this is what the chip-maker claims as it has released ATI Catalyst 9.3 Unified Driver introducing support for Windows 7 Beta Build 7000. The processor manufacturer, which acquired ATI, indicated that the advent of ATI Catalyst 9.3 drivers for Windows 7 represented a guarantee that support would be available with all planned future releases of ATI Catalyst, for the remaining milestones of the next iteration of the Windows client, but especially for the gold (final) version Windows 7.
“AMD’s expertise in visual computing shines through in the combined experience of Windows 7 and ATI Radeon graphics,” revealed Anantha Kancherla, group program manager responsible for Windows graphics, Microsoft. Read more
NVIDIA GeForce 181.71 Graphics Drivers for Windows 7
NVIDIA has made available for download a new set of graphics drivers designed to make GeForce GPU play nice with the latest public development milestone of the next iteration of the Windows client. The new GeForce graphics drivers tailored to Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 went live on March 2, 2009, and are now up for grabs. NVIDIA explained the need to offer graphics drivers for Windows 7 at this early stage due to the high number of GeForce customers that installed the Beta Build 7000 release of the operating system. Read more
NVIDIA GPUs in Toshiba Laptop
Now, wait a minute, and say that again, please. Could it be that three NVIDIA graphics processors are powering one of Toshiba’s portable computer systems? If so, this is happening at a time when most desktop computer systems are basically powered by a single graphics processor, while the majority of portable PCs are featured with integrated graphics. This should be interesting, at least if you are one of those late-night LAN party gamers looking for the very best in terms of computing experience.
Toshiba is known for offering some of the most interesting portable computer systems on the market but, this time, the company appears to have really outdone itself, with a bit of help from the Santa Clara, California-based green team. Read more
NVIDIA to Prep Dual Chip and 40nm Cards
nvidia
It seems that NVIDIA is working on a dual chip solution right now, although it’s trying to keep it secret. It is not sure what chip the green company will use to power the card, yet there are some voices stating that it may be a GT200 55nm. The same rumors say that the dual chip solution may be due for a December launch.
The Santa Clara graphics card manufacturer appears to be silent on its future plans. It only talked about CUDA, PhysX and Graphics plus concept with its partners, yet it is focusing on the graphics solutions for gaming or other segments as well. The new card that the company is rumored to be working on may prove a power hungry and really hot product, yet it won’t matter that much if it manages to perform a lot better than Radeon HD 4870 X2, the leader of the extreme performance market today. Read more
NVIDIA’s Secret Weapon: 40nm GPUs
According to the most recent details regarding NVIDIA’s upcoming graphics products, the Santa Clara-based chip maker is planning to release its very first 40nm GPUs, even before competitor AMD has a chance of delivering its own 40nm-based solutions. Apparently, NVIDIA will step up to the next-generation TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 40G process technology with the introduction of new mobile chips, codenamed N10x.
At this point in time, there are no details regarding availability and official release date but, according to VR-Zone, NVIDIA will try to be the first to offer a 40nm graphics card, thus increasing its chances of gaining the number one spot in the graphics card market. Read more
Dell Releases NVIDIA Patch
Owners of some quirky Dell Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Vostro and XPS models should be relieved to learn that a patch has been announced that fixes most of the problems associated with a rogue NVIDIA graphics adaptor chip. These include lines on the screen, multiple images and random characters and they can appear when the graphics processor unit (GPU) overheats. The BIOS patch optimises the fan’s temperature regulation of the GPU. The problem, which is caused by a packaging fault on the chip should solve the problem for most users but if the chip fails then NVIDIA has set aside up to $200 million to cover warranty claims. There’s a list of affected models, and link to the download on the Dell2Direct website.
Top Ten Notebooks You Couldn’t Do Without
Mobile computing has conquered both the high-end and the mainstream markets and analysts claim that the number of sold notebooks will outpace desktop systems by 2010. Mobile gaming is still a niche market, dominated by bulky notebooks with significant price tags, but most of the general-purpose laptops deliver optimal performance at a reasonable price tag.
The first entry in the mainstream notebook line-up is the Acer Aspire 5920 model, that comes rigged with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 chip running at 1.6 GHz. The system also packs 2 GB of DDR2 memory and runs Windows Vista Home Premium. The 15.4-inch LCD display sports anti-glare technology that boosts the video output and offers a comfortable computer experience. The system sells for about $910 via the company’s retail outlets. Read more
