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Intel may launch 845GV chipset supporting FSB 533 MHz

Clie PEG-SL10: new inexpensive PDA from Sony

Photo of the day: Prodigy 192 professional sound card from Audiotrak

Platform Conference: AMD Hammer processors

New EdiCube R notebook line on mobile Pentium 4 and Celeron

A compact NOMAD MuVo from Creative

17" LCD monitor from GREENHOUSE

External hard disks from I-O Data

STMicroelectronics to offer lower profile NVRAM

New inexpensive Toshiba Satellite

New VME interface module from SBS Technologies

Sun XVR-4000: 80 million polygons per second



Intel may launch 845GV chipset supporting FSB 533 MHz

In September Intel plans to launch the improved version of 845GV supporting FSB 533 MHz. In October we also may see the 845PE and 845GE supporting DDR333.

According to mobo makers, Intel mentioned that, besides 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 in the fourth quarter, it plans to release new 845GV. Actually, it´s the same integrated 845GL chipset, but supporting FSB 533 MHz and DDR266. 845GV will cost $2-3 more than 845GL and won´t allow to use add-in graphics cards.

Motherboard manufacturers were surprised as Intel decided to release one more chipset, as the company planned only 845GE and 845PE for the second half-year. Therefore, some believe that Intel may release it to compete with SiS. 845GL sales volumes have not been large, and SiS650 and SiS651 have been adopted better. It´s understandable as they cost $5 less and support FSB 533 MHz along with add-in graphics.

Clie PEG-SL10: new inexpensive PDA from Sony

Sony announced the release and August sales of its new basic level monochrome PDA — Clie PEG-SL10.


Clie PEG-SL10 will cost $150. Naturally, the company strives for the back-to-school season. This may become a serious competitor for similar Palm m125, that costs about $200.


Sony CLIE PEG-SL10 has monochrome 320È320 LCD screen, 8 MB RAM (7 MB available), Memory Stick slot. It works under Palm OS 4.1 and enables to view and edit Microsoft Word and Excel files.

The release of CLIE PEG-SL10 is not the only step to strengthen company´s PDA market position. As you know, Sony has recently cut prices for its color PDA / remote control — Clie T615C — from $400 to $300, and the price of monochrome 16MB Clie S360 was cut from $200 to $180. Now let´s wait for the rivals´ turn...

Photo of the day: Prodigy 192 professional sound card from Audiotrak

We´ve got Audiotrak Prodigy 192 professional sound card in our lab.


So, we present the first photos along with card´s brief specifications:

  • High quality 24bit 192kHz DA converter; 104dB Dynamic range
  • High quality 24bit 96kHz AD converter; 100dB Dynamic range
  • Analog 2 In / 6 Out;
  • 1 x stereo + 4dBu 1/8" Input and 3 x stereo + 1/8" Output
  • 2(4-with MI/ODI/O)channel Recording and 8channel playback at the same time
  • 24bit 96kHz S/PDIF PCM digital out & AC3/DTS pass thru
  • Supports multiple Sampling Rates : 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192kHz
  • Full Duplex — Simultaneous Record/Playback Uses 32bit PCI slot: PCI Bus-Mastering support
  • 1 Headphone Preamp
  • MI/ODI/O Option Bracket:
  • Digital Input pass trhu.
  • 1 In / 1 Out, 16 channel MIDI Interface option
  • Supports the EWDM driver:
  • Multile MME, Multiple Direct sound, ASIO 2.0 and GigaStudio support OS: Microsoft Windows XP/2000/ME/98SE
  • Recommended price: $149.

Platform Conference: AMD Hammer processors

Platform Conference, that took part in California last week, brought important news about new 64-bit AMD Opteron / Athlon.


The company has at last specified the cache capacity of its new products. New-geenration Athlon (former ClawHammer) will have 256 KB / 512 KB L2 cache, Opteron chips — 1 MB / 2 MB L2 cache. The core of new Athlon will be 104 sq.mm in size.


The company has also unveiled the development and release plans for the next Hammer chipset after AMD-8000. After AMD-8131, the HyperTransport PCI-X bridge, in 2004 we´ll see its newer variant, supporting the second-generation PCI-X — PCI-X 2. By that time the company also plans to release AMD-8111 I/O bridge. And the AMD-8151 AGP tunnel will remain the same.


There´s a very familiar situation emerges in the AMD platform chipsets sector: it seems that AMD isn´t going to release large amounts of its Hammer chipsets, so VIA, ALi, SiS, NVIDIA, ATI may become the main chipset vendors.

New EdiCube R notebook line on mobile Pentium 4 and Celeron

Epson Direct announced the release and sales of new EdiCube R notebook line.



EDiCube R450H/R450P bases on mobile 1.7 GHz Pentium 4-M-1, has 256 MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM, 15" LCD monitor and CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo. It will cost 194800 yen or $1665. "î" or "ò" means Windows XP Home Edition or Professional, respectively.

The second model — R250H/R250P — bases on 1.4 GHz Mobile Celeron and has only CD-RW drive. It will cost 164800 yen or $1410.

Both models utilize external hard disks to reduce the thickness and weight. Notebooks are 336x274x38 mm in size and weigh 3.0 kg. The battery is said to provide 3.5 hours of operation.

A compact NOMAD MuVo from Creative

Creative Labs announced the new version of its NOMAD player — MuVo (Music Voyage). 64 MB devices (CNMV64) are expected in retail in the end of July, 128 MB models (CNMV128) are expected later.





Creative NOMAD MuVo supports MP3 and Windows Media Audio. USB features very interesting design — the player needs to be disassemled to access the port. NOMAD MuVo provides 90 dB signal/noise ratio at 0.05% and lower harmonic distortion. Device´s outpur power with plugged headphones is 7 mW.



NOMAD MuVo is 73x15x35 mm in size and weighs 28 gr. Its recommended retail price is 16000 yen ($137).

17" LCD monitor from GREENHOUSE

GREENHOUSE announced 17" LCD monitor to be shipped in the middle of August.



Its features are average: up to 1280x1024 resolution, 24-bit color, 130° viewing angle, 0.264 mm dot size, 350:1 contrast, 250 candles/sq.m brightness, 56-75 Hz refresh rate. Product size is 407x172.8x435.9 mm, weight — 5.8 kg. Energy consumption — 45 W.

The price is TBA and expected to be about 80000 yen or $690.

External hard disks from I-O Data

Some companies always surprise us out of the boredom of traditions. This time I-O Data released an external: hard disk. USB 1.1/2.0 device will have two variants: 40 GB HDP-U40P and 20 GB HDP-U20P.



Both disks are 2.5" in size, require about 500 mA consumption current and weigh 200 gr. Disks operate under Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and Mac OS 9-9.2, Mac OS X (10.0.3-10.1.4).

40 GB HDP-U40P will cost 33000 yen or $280, and 20 GB HDP-U20P — 22000 yen or $190.

STMicroelectronics to offer lower profile NVRAM

STMicroelectronics announced a new chip for its non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) line — M48Z32V ZEROPOWER NVRAM.





This small-dimension chip is designed for network routers and switches, servers and data storage systems. Like other NVRAM chips M48Z32V requires battery power supply, but doesn´t have it onboard to preserve the size. Simply put, it´s a lighter NVRAM chip without it´s own power source, but with battery switchover. The M48Z32V is rated at 10 years of data retention on only 18mAh of battery capacity at 40°C.



The device features monolithic 44-pin SOIC only 0.12" (3.05 mm) high. It runs at runs at 3.3V (+/-10%). M48Z32V wholesale price will be under $3.

New inexpensive Toshiba Satellite

Toshiba Computer Systems announced the release of a new Satellite — 1100-S101. It´s designed for students, end users, and small businesses, where price is important as well as specifications.



Satellite 1100-S101 features: 1.33 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard disk and 14.1" TFT LCD screen. Besides, the notebook features DVD-ROM and floppy drive, 56ë modem, 10/100 Ethernet, 3 USB ports. Satellite 1100-S101 weighs 3.2 kg.

The product also has Windows XP Professional and costs $1250 and higher.

New VME interface module from SBS Technologies

SBS Technologies announced ABI-3910, VME interface module of 6U form-factor, based on PowerPC system board and single-channel STANAG 3910 PMC daughterboard. It´s designed for modelling, data processing, avionics, and other applications that demand high transfer rates.



ABI-3910, working under VxWorks OS, may be configured as a system controller. Higher and usual performance bus interfaces are featured in 3910 with high-performance DSP, programmable logic and dual-port RAM (56MB available).

Shipments of ABI-3910 are expected in fall.

Sun XVR-4000: 80 million polygons per second

Sun has just unveiled some details about its new Sun XVR-4000 video accelerator. According to the plan, Sun is to cooperate with software developers, testers and certifiers. This will continue for at least two quarters, so shipments of XVR-4000 may start closer to the year-end.

According to the official press release, tests show that XVR-4000 is 9 times faster than SGI IR-3 (Infinite Reality) IR-3 (Infinite Reality) at 3D objects processing and has 4 times more texture memory (should be sceptical about the former ;).

XVR-4000 features MAJC architecture, providing processing of 80 million lit antialiased polygons per second. XVR-4000 utilizes 4 antialiasing chips for polygons, stored in the frame buffer (144 MB total). Each pixel in the frame buffer is defined by up to 16 subpixel samples, randomly situated in the 64È64 matrix. Each of the 4 AA chips uses five 5È5 filters to calculate averages with weighting coefficients using 400 subpixel samples (5È5È16).

The product supports S-Video for NTSC/PAL recording and Dynamic Video Resizing; it also supports dual-monitor configurations. Sun press release mentions that visualization subsystem, based on Sun Fire V880 server with two XVR-4000 accelerators, provides up to four 1920È1200 monitor configurations.

XVR-4000 will cost about $30000.

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