Wednesday June 22, 2005

- First test and benchmarks for the GeForce 7800 - Lionel - 17:14:46

The nVidia Geforce 7800 is not available yet but a Chinese website, Hardspell.com has published a long test.


Of course this card is faster than the GF6800, but it seems that to really see the difference, one will have to use either specific benchmarks softwares, or really high resolutions. It as also possible that the CPU was also a limiting factor.
With this card, one can play Doom3 around 100FPSS at 1600x1200.
The article is in Chinese but charts are understandable in all languages.
http://www.hardspell.com


[translation by Eric]

- Firmware 1.55 for DVR-109 - Lionel - 16:27:47

The firmware 1.55 for Pioneer burner models 109 and A09 is available.
It adds support for 12x and 16x media, multi-session DVD-R DL, and improves all media DVD burning quality.
To download the Pc version:
For the DVR-A09:
DVRA09_FW155EU.EXE
for the DVR-109:
DVR109_FW155EU.EXE

We have also prepared a Mac-flashing application for version 1.55:
DVR109_FW155EU2.sit
Warning, it does not work on modified- or transformed- DVR-A09 neither on DVR-109. For the latest, we want to remind you that the operation is reversible via a PC. You only need DVRupdate 0.9 to apply again firmware 1.05 for DVR-109 which has been placed in the following archive: 109105.zip. You will then have again a DVR-109 with a 1.05 firmware that you will be able to flash on your Mac.


[translation by Eric]

- Will coprocessors be back in our computers in the future? - Lionel - 13:38:43

Source : TomsHardware

Some our reader will remember the time when coprocessor were present to help the main CPU in some specific tasks as well as to boost the overall computer performance.
Apple has been using co-processor with 68xxxCPU, externally at the beginning before integrating them directly into the CPU die.
Today, such units are directly integrated into CPU; but the era of external coprocessors could be back.


The company Clearspeed will propose a PCI-express-based daughter card featuring 2 chips specialized/dedicated to 64bits floating point computing (availability Q3 2005). Together, those chips will have a computing capacity of 50 GFlops. If the motherboard includes an additional PCIexpress slot, then one could install 2 of such a card, and end up with a theoretical additional raw computing capacity of 100GFlops.
In addition, those chips are clocked at 250MHz! so such computing power is achieved due to the architecture of the chips which includes 96cores.
Finally, it is possible to add to this card one DDR2 RAM module per chips.
The price of this card is still not known.
Knowing that our G5 or Xserve will soon move to Intel processor, it would be nice to be able to add such cards in our computers.


[translation by Eric]

- iMacG5 motherboard: are problems finally solved? - Lionel - 09:08:31

Apparently, apple has finally solved the problem faced with the midplane(motherboard) manufacturing for the iMacG5 revA. Many users have reported to us that following weeks of delay, they have received notice from apple that their iMacG5 were finally repaired.
We hope that Apple have solved all problems with this revA midplane.


[translation by Eric]

- Price of 15" LCD panel will increase - Lionel - 09:04:53

Source : Digitimes

After a series of major price cuts in past months, the price of 15" and 15.4" LCD panels for laptop will increase due to a strong and sustained request.
The first manufacturer to modify its price is CDP; starting next month, the price for LCD panel will be 10% higher (15$).
We will for sure see the effect of this increase on the LCD display price quite rapidly.


[translation by Eric]

- Mac mini availability: back to normal - Lionel - 08:59:43

Thanks to Sylvain to inform us that the Mac mini availability is back to normal (same business day or 24 hours) in all AppleStore worldwide.
For those dreaming of a potential linked between the recent delay and a possible update...well you will have to wait longer.


[translation by Eric]