W.I.L. Hardware Tech-News Highlights for May/June 2007

Systems

The power saving guide – Part 1, Part 2.

Five days with the Classmate PC, Intel’s answer to (or competition with) the One Laptop per Child effort, and Mandriva – link.

CPUs, motherboards, chipsets

Which is the best mainstream CPU? If you are willing to spend more than $200 on the processor, Core 2 Duo still is the only reasonable choice. AMD still provides a great value, but mostly in the mainstream. – link.

Fixing your motherboard for $15 by exchanging electrolytic capacitors yourself – link.

– AMD

AMD’s road ahead shows promise – link. AMD names Athlon’s successor, Phenom – link.

Athlon X2 BE-2350 are cheap and efficient dual core processors. From a cost and an energy efficiency standpoint the 45W CPU is the best choice today – link.

Athlon X2 BE-2350 are 65nm mainstream X2 CPUs, running at 2.1GHz and 1.9GHz at 45W, offer an interesting alternative to current 65W X2s. However, if you seek a high performance system with lower power requirements, the Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 is still a better bet – review.

AMD’s next-generation mobile architecture, “Griffin/Puma” looks to be AMD’s best attempt at mobile computing yet. Whether it will be enough to dent Centrino is another matter entirely – link.

– Intel

Intel plots a comeback – link.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 will bring 1333MHz FSB to the desktop – preview.

Intel launches DDR3 support, introduces a new ICH9 Southbridge, and promises to bring improved performance to the table with P35 chipset – link.

Intel’s new member in Core 2 Duo CPU family feature 1333MHz bus, and come with an attractive price tag. The higher bus speed will obviously boost the performance in most applications, but this boost will not be as significant as one might hope – link.

Intel Pentium E2160 and Pentium E2140 are New budget dual-core CPUs push the performance of budget solutions to a totally new level. Their performance does not look as mind-blowing as that of their Core 2 Duo counterparts, in the majority of real applications these processors outperform all alternative solutions (excepting certain games, where recent Athlon 64 X2) – link.

8 motherboards based on Intel’s mainstream P35 chipset with DDR3 compared – link. p P35-DDR3 motherboards compared – link.

– Other

Via trots out mini notebook, mobile motherboard – link.

Graphics

ATI Radeon HD 2000 architecture reviewed – link.

PowerColor X1950 Pro SCS3 graphics card achieves an optimal combination of noiseless operation and high gaming performance, at an acceptable price. Main drawback is large size, so is not suitable for compact systems – review.

Memory, storage

DDR3 vs. DDR2 comparison shows longrun promise of former – link.

Kingston launches low-latency DDR3. Now the price needs to drop ... – review.

LogFS, a scalable filesystem to improve performance on the wide array of flash memory storage devices now available – link.

Toshiba’s 1.8” 100GB HDD demonstrates impressive energy efficiency – link.

250 GB notebook HHDs are here, thanks to perpendicular recording technology, but could use performance and energy efficiency improvements – link.

Pioneer BDR-101ABK Blu-Ray burner lacks backward compatibility with DVD and CD media, and comes with functionality that is not worth its price – review.

Cases, power supplies, cooling

A look at cases on display at Computex 2007 – link.

Nexus NX-8060 ATX PSU passes all the power and electrical aspects of performance with flying colors. Where the unit does not quite meet expectations is in the area of acoustics – review.

120 mm fan roundup revisited – link.

CPU coolers from CoolIT are closed-loop liquid cooling systems are about as easy to install and maintain as exotic systems come. Compared to a water cooling system, they both have strengths and weaknesses, but are definitely interesting products for the PC enthusiast – link.

OCZ Vindicator CPU cooler has many advantages, including high efficiency, extremely low noise level, a sufficient efficiency to handle an overclocked system in passive mode (in a test system with 3 case fans) – review.

Passive GPU cooling solutions from Arctic Cooling and Cooler Master all failed to reveal any drawbacks in testing – link.

Miscellaneous components and periferals

LCD monitors testing methodology explained in depth – link.

Laptop LCD roundup indicates lack of display quality vs. latest and greatest desktop LCDs, but the situation should improve in the near future – link.

Samsung SyncMaster 940UX connects to a PC via the USB bus and can work without a graphics card, but it cannot replace the D-Sub and DVI interfaces because the software emulation of the graphics card cannot replace the true hardware and because Windows did not react normally to trying to boot up with the USB monitor only. It provides a multi-monitor solution for little money or with technical limitations – review.

Dell 17” 2707WFP looks for the middle ground of large LCDs. Dell delivers on the looks and the features, but for imaging professionals, HTPC types, or those with limited funds we would take a closer look at other options – review.

HP LP3065 is new contender for the 30” throne – review.

Sharp’s enormous flat screens are its ticket to reclaiming its lead in the hot market for LCDs – link.

11 color inkjet printers compared – link.