Apple surprised many people at their recent iPod launch event by focusing on the iPod nano rather than their flagship touchscreen PMP, the iPod touch. Still, they saved a little magic for the third-generation model, including a lower starting price and some games-focused speed boosts higher up in the range. Does the iPod touch 3G stay ahead of the pack, or did Apple miss a trick by not tweaking further? Check out our review after the cut.
Video head-to-head with iPhone 3GS after the cut
AMD have revealed their latest attempt to corner the market in notebook hardware, with the launch of the 2009 AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform “Tigris” and the Second-Generation AMD Ultrathin Platform. Both combine AMD’s latest CPUs and ATI-range GPUs, and promise up to 42-percent improved performance in the mainstream range and ultraportables that “visibly outperform” rival systems (such as Intel’s CULV, we presume) when it comes to 3D gaming, media processing and more.
It’s not quite the September 6th announcement we expected, but Intel have finally come clean on their new Core i7-860, i7-870 and Core i5-750 processors, along with a cluster of new Xeon chips. The three new Nehalem-based consumer processors run at 2.80GHz, 2.93GHz and 2.66GHz respectively, with the two Core i7 chips having four cores and eight threads each, while the Core i5 chip – which lacks Hyper Threading support – manages with four cores and four threads.
Each can be flipped into Turbo mode, with the i7-860 scaling up to 3.46GHz, the i7-870 up to 3.6GHz, and the i5-750 up to 3.2GHz. All three have a TDP of 95W, and will be priced – when bought in 1,000 unit quantities – at $284, $562 and $196 each, respectively.
While expensive ultraportables may get the bulk of online attention, the real battle is going on at the budget end of the market, where netbooks, CULV ultra-thins and cheap notebooks are fighting it out for a slice of the lucrative back-to-school audience. Into the fray steps Gateway, no stranger to the segment, and they’ve brought along their NV5214u, very much the desktop-replacing notebook rather than a slick but underpowered netbook. With an MRSP of $499.99 it certainly ticks the budget box; check out the full SlashGear review after the cut to see if it can tick any others.
Where netbooks go, their deskbound nettop brethren eventually follow, and as NVIDIA’s Ion GPU has made its impact on the graphics capabilities of budget ultraportables, so it has its sights set on compact desktops too. ASRock and NVIDIA worked together on the ION 330-BD, a Blu-ray toting nettop that pairs Intel’s Atom processor with NVIDIA’s ION platform, and sent one over to prove to SlashGear that just because the footprint is small, it doesn’t mean the performance is too.
It’s probably fair to say that we haven’t been particularly impressed with what we’ve heard about Acer’s Aspire One 751. The phrase “pretty but dumb” has been muttered more than once, an aesthetically pleasing machine but one lacking in processing power. So when Acer offered us the latest version, the AO751h-1522, we jumped at the opportunity to see how it holds up to our own exacting standards. Check out the full review after the cut
AMD have officially announced their latest high-end performance CPU, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. Running at 3.4GHz, the quad-core AM3 processor has 8MB cache and a 2.0GHz HT Link; in keeping with AMD’s “Black Label” chips it’s also unlocked for overclocking. In fact, the company provides their own OverDrive software, which can load either Black Edition memory profiles, for DDR3-tuned overclock presets, or more straightforward Smart Profiles which direct app-specific processes to specific cores.
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Intel are tipped to have scheduled their shift to 32nm "Sandy Bridge" chip architecture by Q4 2010, according to the latest loose-talk at PC manufacturers. The technology will replace Nehalem and Westmere, the latter expected to shift to 32nm processes in Q4 this year. Westmere will add six-core processors to the company's line, and go on sale alongside 45nm quad-core Nehalem chips.
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Intel and Micron have announced a new high-density, cost-effective memory chip, that could bring down the price of flash cards and USB drives. The chip uses 3-bit-per-cell (3bpc) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND technology and is manufactured on a 32nm production line; the two companies are calling it "the industry's smallest and most cost-effective 32-gigabit chip that is currently available on the market."
A reasonably stylish all-in-one with a sub-$400 price-tag and 18.5-inch widescreen display: too good to be true or bargain of the century? The eMachines EZ1601-01 poaches Intel’s trusty Atom processor for some desktop duty, offering a squint-free LCD and full-sized peripherals. SlashGear have been testing it out.
SlashGear Japan
