Thursday March 13, 2008

- The 8800 GTS 512 and the Mac Pro (rev 2) - Lionel - 17:56:20

Having recovered our dead Mac Pro (it was well as we suspected: a motherboard break-down), we were able to try flashing a Gainward 8800 GTS 512 with 128 KB EEPROM. Once flashed, the card works fine under OS X. We even played around, overclocking at 740 MHz. GLView appears unable to exceed 800 fps.

We took a quick tour of Doom 3. The game remained perfectly fluid 2560x1600 at full settings... However, while it is recognised under Windows pre-flash, it was not aferward. We are working to try to solve this problem which seems to be linked to the identification of this PCI card being 601 instead of 611 for a GT. EFI does not seem to want to activate it. With some highly motivated members of the forums, we will try to overcome this problem.

[translation by CliveAtFive]

- It Will Be Difficult to Upgrade MacBook Air HD - Lionel - 14:29:47

Since the MacBook Air was released, we have been watching the evolution of the 1.8" HD market more carefully. As you known the MacBook Air HD and SD uses the Zif PATA interface in order to gain space as well as the ability to use plate-based HD found in iPod classic.
But the PATA interface is an old format, and it slowly but surely loosing ground for all HD and even SSD format.
The last announcement made by Intel and Samsung about this topic is important. The future generation of SSD will be only available in SATA format. So, the strategy of purchasing a HD-based MacBook Air today, while expecting to install a SSD later on when prices will be lower, might simply prove to be not viable for a long time. One will probably not be able to install a 128GB SSD, but plate-based HDs should still be available for a longer time and with larger storage capacity than the current 80GB.
So, the next MacBook Air revision should quickly adopt the SATA interface.


[translation by Linathael]

- Still no GeForce 8800 GT for Mac Pro rev1 Owners - Lionel - 14:29:26

While the past months have been a mixed between hope and disappointment for Mac Pro rev1 owners, the GeForce 8800 GT to be compatible with the first Mac Pro generation is still not available. As a reminder, the reason is the EFI driver only available and compiled for 64-bits.
Even though a rumor from mid-January was reporting NVidia was working on a 32-bit driver, today it is not available; even though the company indicates it will need a couple of weeks. We think that developing a driver requires time, but if you really want to have done, it should not take months to get it ready, except if you decide (NVidia, NVidia+Apple, Apple) that such investment is not of financial interest.
Once more, even is Cupertino is not directly involved in this story, users will conclude that Apple is more interested about potential new customers than supporting or bringing satisfaction to Mac users. It also demonstrates how frustrating it can be for Mac users of having Apple refusing to deeply collaborate with NVidia and ATI in order to deliver more frequently optimized GPU drivers.



[translation by Linathael]

- 100,000 iPhone SDK already Downloaded - Lionel - 14:28:55

Apple announced that the iPhone SDK has already been downloaded 100,000 times. If the SDK is for sure a success among developers, one should not forget that many Mac users got their copy of the SDK simply to test it or watch the package made available by Cupertino.
To get a better idea of the iPhone SDK success, one will have to wait for June and/or the WWDC to quickly evaluate how many iPhone applications have been developed, as well as how many developers agreed to pay 100USD to get the coding key allowing the have their application available from the AppStore.


[translation by Linathael]

- Intel wants to break all records with its Atom processors - Lionel - 07:27:43

Source : vr-zone

Eee PC will be the first machine to start the birth of a new category of computers, less complex, less powerful and especially much less expensive.
Intel is proud to announce its processors Atom that are less powerful but have a low power consumption and price.
We have just leaned the price of the first Atom processors
N270 runs at 1,66 GHz with a 533 MHz bus and consumes only 2W will cost 44$.
To still lower the price, the foundery proposes the N230 which is identical however the consumptions rises to 4W and will cost 29$.
These two processors have only one core and use the Hyperthreading technology; this makes a return here after being abandoned with the Pentium 4.
With these processors at this price, we look forward in the next months to multimedia devices that are powerful yet having good battery life.
We can easily imagine that Apple could use the Atom processor in its next revision of the Apple TV, or perhaps a successor of the Mac mini will be proposed that will be even smaller; this could serve the needs of some people without eating much into the iMac market.

[translation by crispin]