W.I.L. Hardware Tech-News Highlights for January 2006

The best hardware of 2005, and some of the not-so-great – link.

The HP 12c calculator turns 25 – link.

The 50 greatest gadgets of the past 50 years – link.

Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show 2006 in pictures – link. More CES coverage here and here. AnandTech’s CES coverage - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

Systems

AnandTech’s January mid-range to high-end system buyer’s guide – link.

Setting up a quiet PC in tropical Thailand – link.

Dan from Dansdata builds a new computer out of brand new pieces, and describes the process in entertaining detail – link.

PC Perspective updates Hardware Leaderboard, which comes up with benchmark price/value Dream, High End, Midrange and Budget systems – link.

Modding Culture 101: A teeny tiny history of modding – link.

Michael Dell ridicules Microsoft as a “so called” high-end gamer, unveils stunning new limited edition Dell gaming PC – link.

With Quanta and Compal set to manufacture 50% of the world’s notebooks during 2006, notebooks are becoming dull as dishwater as they turn into commodities – link.

A guide for new notebook technologies in 2006, a year which will see some major milestones – link.

Voodoo PC has a soundless AMD Turion notebook design – link.

Powerplay is Linux-based software which allows the notebook user to set various frequencies at which the video card operates. A surprisingly good tool for Linux users wishing to get the best out of their portable systems in any situation – review.

Samsung’s Q30 Plus sub-notebook features minimum weight and maximum performance, at a price – review.

Fujitsu Siemens’s LIFEBOOK P7010 sub-notebook is a lucky combination of an advanced configuration that delivers a sufficiently high performance and a rich set of I/O ports similar to normal-size notebooks – review.

The 4th generation of Libretto, the Toshiba U100-S213 laptop, is compared with several other microlaptops – link.

CPUs, motherboards, chipsets

AnandTech’s end-of-January motherboard price guide – link.

AnandTech’s January CPU price guide – link.

The processor wars – Part I, “The death of Alpha”, Part II, “The current generation”.

In spite of the fact that Yonah and its successors are going to be great CPUs that will deliver industry-leading performance per watt numbers, Intel has one giant hole in its 2006-07 lineup: interconnect technology – link.

Wall Street chip analysts come under hack scrutiny – link.

– AMD

What are the AMD accelerators? A modern spin of the old co-processor idea? – link.

AMD sales soar by 46% in Q4, figures that by 2008/09, it will have as much as 30% of the x86 market – link.

AMD plans to slashe and burn Opteron prices in mid-February – link.

AMD’s dual-core Athlon 64 FX-60 responds worthily to Intel’s Pentium Extreme Edition 955 – review.

New nForce4 chipsets means there could be price competition in the Intel segment again – link.

nForce4 SLI motherboards roundup indicates that the Asus A8N-SLI Premium offers premium performance at a bargain price – link.

Gigabyte’s GA-K8N51PVMT-9 is an entry-level mATX solution based on nVidia GF6150 integrated chipset. This board take aims on potential SFF HTPC builders that wants video output direct to TV. Competitors should watch their backs – review.

Asus’s A8N-VM CSM mATX motherboard comes with the Geforce 6150/430 chipset, which is the best value for money entry level system pair. It comes with TVO, support for HD Audiio, Firewire port, GbE controller and four memory slots, but only two PCI slots. The integrated graphics is weak but the motherboard itself is as performing as most mid range motherboards – review.

Asus’s A8R-MVP motherboard is probably one of the most exciting motherboards lately. Cheap, combining ATI’s Crossfire technology with ALI’s (now nVidia’s) superb M1575 Southbridge, with 8-channel HD audio, four SATA Raidable ports, and more tweaks in its BIOS than most motherboards in its category – review.

– Intel

Just how different are Intel-Macs from Intel PCs? – link.

Intel Reveals New desktop content-distribution PC Platform, Viiv – link.

Intel roadmap news and rumor here, here, here, and here.

Intel’s explanations for weak financial results are odd – link.

Intel’s launches notebook platform of Yonah + Centrino Duo. Get better performance, longer battery life at the same price as last year’s notebooks – review.

Even with four times more cache and a 60% increase in speed, Intel’s new 65nm Pentium D seems to be bested by AMD’s X2 almost everywhere – review.

ASRock’s 775i915P-SATA2 Intel 915P Express chipset-based motherboard boasts impressive stability as well as compatibility out of the box with ATI’s Crossfire, but no SATA II, RAID, HD Audio or GbE LAN – review.

Foxconn’s 945G7MA-8KS2 Socket 775 MicroATX motherboard is a great value for building a quiet, powerful, and feature-rich PC for your home, office, or media center – review.

– Other

Via ships 90nm Eden low-power processors. The new chips are the Eden and Eden ULV, the latter consumes just 3.5W at 1GHz and 7.5W at 1.5GHz. The Eden clocks at between 400MHz and 1.2GHz (eventually 2GHz), consuming up to 2.5W and 7W at those speeds. Neither needs active cooling – link.

A look at a Via C-7M-based laptop reveals the CPU’s virtues for use in ultraportable notebook designs – review.

Via intros low cost, dust and heat resistant computers for use in developing countries – link.

IBM’s renewed cell collaboration with Sony pressures Intel – link.

Graphics

AnandTech’s January video card price guide is out – link.

AGEIA PhysX card demo pictured – link.

MSI shows off graphics card where you can replace GPU and memory, without throwing away the rest – link.

ATI’s new leader in graphics performance, the Radeon X1900 Series – review.

The GeForce 7300 is nVidia’s very first shipping 90nm part – link.

nVidia’s soon-to–be entry level, today’s midrange card, the Geforce 6800GS on which the XFX is based, is efficient with power consumption and simply destroys competition, including the X1600XT, when it comes to pure performance – review.

Four cards based on the GeForce 6800GS are tested – link.

Four cards based on the GeForce 7300GS are tested. Performance is a let down – link.

S3 Chrome S27 GPU is an appealing new offering in the entry-level graphics card market, yet it is not free from drawbacks. If these are promptly corrected, the Chrome S27 may make a worthy opponent to GeForce 6600 GDDR2 and RADEON X1300 PRO, if the price is < $100 – review.

Memory, storage

AnandTech’s January storage price guide – link.

eDevices’ PC3200 512MB value DDR memory is worth its salt – review.

High-capacity DDR2 reaches 1GHz – link.

A real memory stick breakthrough breaks through: a capacity use display meter – link.

San Disk’s 1GB miniSD is the size of a thumbnail, and comes with a special adapter and a 5 year warranty. Speed is more than adequate for everyday tasks – review.

Will flash memory eat your laptop’s hard drive? – link.

Panasonic says 50GB rewritable blank Blu-Ray disk to cost $60 – link.

– Hard Disk Drives

Simpletech’s Simpledrive Mini 4GB microdrive is a good drive at a great price, useful for carrying in a pocket and moving A LOT of data around. You will have to do a little work to get it to work with Win98SE and Linux – review.

Qrisma’s Portable Mini HDD is a 1” HD-based USB storage device. A bit slower than a flash disk of comparable size, but certainly a lot cheaper – link.

X-Micro’s 20GB Mini DisGo portable external HDD is smaller than a $1 bill performs well, and you can even boot from one – review.

Perpendicular storage coming in 2006 – link.

Western Digital’s Raptor WD1500 150GB SATA 10,000rpm HDD with 16MB buffer is now the fastest drive for non-server use (faster than even 15,000rpm SCSI drives). It seems pretty much in the middle of the pack as far as noise is concerned. It does cost almost twice as much as many 7,200rpm drives – review 1, review 2.

Seagate reveals its first HDD featuring perpendicular recording, claims transition to perpendicular recording media should be complete in about a year – link.

Single platter 3.5” HDDs, round one: Seagate and Hitachi both fail to set new standards for low noise. (The search continues …) – review.

Acomdata’s 250SE5-PCI 250GB SATA external HDD is a good value considering it comes with necessary cables and a PCI controller with external SATA ports – link.

Nine external enclosures for 2.5” HDDs compared. Surprising is how different interfaces can make such a diffence: the same enclosure with different interface ranked first and last – roundup.

Cases, power supplies, cooling

Thermaltake’s Tai-Chi case comes with a pre-installed water-cooling system – review.

The PicoPSU is a full DC-DC PSU with a 120w capability, and it fits entirely over the standard PC 20 pin connector in a 1U case. It was made for VIA CPUs, but will work just fine on P3s and Athlons. It only has 2 molex and a single floppy connector. Amazingly tiny and cool – link.

Antec’s Neo HE 550W PSU is exceptionally efficient and silent – review.

SilverStone’s Zeus ST56ZF 560W PSU performed great and remained silent even at high loads – link.

SilverStone’s Strider ST56F 560W PSU is strong but not silent, and one expects more for its price – review 1, review 2.

Zalman’s ZM460-APS 460W PSU is not quite as quiet as the Seasonic S12, but has a smoother fan and more features. At the very least it is a worthy competitor – review.

– Cooling Solutions

Air cooling your PC, hits, tips, and advice (the things nobody bothers to point out) – link. How to correctly apply thermal grease – link.

Coolink’s U8-120-1600 is a superb CPU cooler. It may not work well if you have a smaller casing – review.

Arctic Cooling’s Freezer 64 pro is not too heavy, unbelievably cheap, virtually silent, of high build quality, and easy to install. Cons? Ummm, ummm … – review.

Corsair’s COOL water cooling kit is easy to install and maintain – review.

Coolermaster’s Nano Fusion thermal compound is not quite as effective as Arctic Silver 5, but has some virtues of its own – review.

Noctua/Coolink NH-U12/U8-120-1600 120mm and NH-U9/U8-92-1900 92mm tower heatsink are fundamentally fine products, just not quite as good as the best of the competition – review.

Thermalrigh’st HR-01 passive CPU heatsink delivers performance neck-and-neck with the Scythe Scythe Ninja, which is saying something, and it is easier to install. It is only AMD-compatible out of the box – review.

Miscellaneous components and periferals

Creative’s SoundBlaster X-Fi next-generation sound card family features excellent sound quality and comes with functional and powerful software – review.

Bluegears’s X Mixtique 7.1 sound card gets a look-over – review.

Eight mice (4 laser and 4 optical) compared – roundup.

Genius’s Ergomedia 700 keyboard and the Ergo 525 mouse are feature-packed, especially for the price. They are fine for everyday use, as long as the ergonomics suit you – review.

Dell’s UltraSharp 3007WFP 30” widescreen display is impressive, but not cheap (although cheaper than its competitor from Apple) – review.

Gateway’s FPD2185 21” monitor which is one of the sleekiest and most impressive entry level LCD TVs around, but its one year warranty could be better and there is no cable – review.

Nine personal monochrome laser printers for home and office use compared– link.

Canon’s LaserShot LBP 3000 entry-level laser printer is worth looking into – review.

How using third party ink can save you money – link.

Finally, a decent head mounted display projector is at hand – link.

Nikon’s D200 digital camera targets the serious amateur/professional, features 10.2 megapixel resolution, superb build quality, a wide array of features and fast handling. Until the market responds, Nikon has delivered the best mid-range digital SLR yet – review.

Fujitsu’s S9500 Zoom Digital camera(S9000 in the U.S.) is a 9MP camera with a 10.7x optical zoom as well as Digital SLR features. The lenses are good enough for almost everything including 10mm Super macro. Plus it is cheap and dust free, and an impressive check list of features. Great images, high iso sensitivity and a respectable handling – review.

14 (24 with the variants) digital camcorders from Canon, Samsung, JVC, Panasonic and Sony given a relatively detailed and well explained comparative review – link.

Yuan’s DVB-T mobility PD300 is a thumbdrive size external USB 2.0 TV Tuner. It comes with its own retractable antenna and one external one as well. The software is easy to understand and to work with, reception is pretty nice, and it even comes with a remote control – review.

iRiver’s U10 media player has an innovative interface that works well and is feature laden, including the ability to play Ogg-Vorbis files. The downsides are the relatively high price and the clumsy method of getting content onto the device – review.

Better batteries fuel fuel cell speculation – link.