AOpen DXP7R: the first dual-processor Xeon board on VIA P4X400

845GE, 845PE and 845GV to appear in the second half of August. A little about pricing

65-inch DLP TV projector from Optoma

DVD+RW updated: 4È DVD+R writing and 8 cm media

EPIA 2 and EPM board on VIA CLE266: more answers — fewer questions

Canopus LowProfile SPECTRA Light G64 AGP based on GeForce 4 MX420

19-inch SXGA LCD display from IIYAMA

AOpen DXP7R: the first dual-processor Xeon board on VIA P4X400

On the above scan from AOpen booklet DXP7R maker is marked as the "thrid party".

The board supports AGP 4x/8x, up to 4GB of DDR333 (òó2700) memory, has a LAN controller (10/100 Intel 82551 or GBe Intel 82540), RAID controller (Promise 20276), 5 32-bit PCI slots.

845GE, 845PE and 845GV to appear in the second half of August. A little about pricing

Taiwanese mobo makers report that shipments of new Intel Pentium 4 chipsets: 845GV, 845GE and 845PE — will begin in the second half of August. It seems that new boards will appear long before the official chipset announcement like it happened in May.

According to the information from Taiwan, the launch of volume manufacture won´t be a problem. Despite new names, these chipsets are just improved versions of previous models: 845GV — previous 845GL with 533 MHz FSB support, 845GE and 845PE — improved DDR333 versions of 845G and 845E, respectively.

65-inch DLP TV projector from Optoma

On the current Hi-End Hi-Fi Audio Show in Taipei Taiwanese Optoma Corporation announced its 65-inch DLP (digital light processor) TV projector — CineGrand RD65 — mainly aimed at the USA market (I only found photos of 50-inch RD50 of the same serie).

The company promotes its TV projectors, based on DLP technology from Texas Instruments, as an alternative to plasma panels, underlining such advantages, as higher resolutions, clear and brighter color, and lower price for the corresponding PDP models.

CineGrand RD65 supports 1280x720 resolutions, up to 350 candles/sq.m maximum brightness, 1500:1 contrast. The screen features 16:9 ratio, backlights lamps are enough for 6,000-8,000 hours. The TV supports 480p, 720p and 1080i TV formats, has a wide number of interfaces: DVI, BNC, RGB, 1394 DV, VGA, YpbPr; 2x15 W stereo speakers and two PiP tuners.

DVD+RW updated: 4È DVD+R writing and 8 cm media

Today DVD+RW Alliance, the group of PC, optical devices and electronics makers, including Dell, HP, MCC/Verbatim, Philips Electronics, Ricoh, Sony, Thomson Multimedia and Yamaha, announced the specifications of 4x DVD+R writing and approved the 8-cm DVD+RW/+R discs as a standard.

4x DVD+R writing specs define 44 Mbps data transfer rates, allowing to write a 4.7GB disc in less than 15 minutes. Before the end of 2002 today specifications will be updated with similar ones for 4x DVD+RW writing.

The new 8 cm design of DVD+RW/+R will enable makers to promote DVD+RW/+R to mobile device markets, i.e. for portable digital cameras.

New 8 cm have 1.46 GB capacity and are compatible with all current DVD-ROM drives and DVD players.

EPIA 2 and EPM board on VIA CLE266: more answers — fewer questions

Of course, the theme of an inexpensive and quiet (!) multimedia-enabled home PC is now important as never. However, to the pleasure of those who already know about ambiguous marks of VIA EPIA-4000 and EPIA-5000 systems for multimedia operations, MPEG4 and DVD in particular: they are good enough for an office. For those willing to build their own quiet multimedia PC, in the near future VIA Technologies will start to sell new-generation EPIA 2 solutions based on VIA CLE266 chipset and EPM Socket 370 motherboard.

EPIA 2 brief specifications:

• VIA C3 800 MHz CPU and higher, EBGA package, 133 MHz FSB
• VIA CLE266 chipset, integrated AGP 8È engine equivalent
• DDR266 SDRAM memory
• 1 PCI expansion slot
• ATA133 support (2xIDE, 1xFDD!)
• VIA 6-channel audio
• Integrated IEEE 1394 controller
• 4 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• Integrated 10/100 LAN
• Integrated TV-Out
• Mini ITX form-factor (170x170mm)
• Expected availability — October

Let´s mention some details about VIA CLE266 Northbridge. The flow-chart:

Feel the difference — all MPEG operations will be performed by an integrated video module instead of CPU! I guess this solves all MPEG4 and DVD slow-performance problems. Though let´s wait for its test results.

In addition — specifications of EPM motherboard, that can be used with any CPU of this family:

• 100/133 MHz FSB VIA C3 CPU support (Socket 370)
• VIA CLE266 chipset, integrated AGP 8È engine equivalent
• DDR266 SDRAM memory
• 3 PCI slots, CNR slot
• ATA133 support (2xIDE, 1xFDD)
• Integrated 6-channel audio
• Integrated IEEE 1394 controller
• 4 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• Integrated 10/100 LAN
• Micro ATX form-factor
• Expected availability — October

Canopus LowProfile SPECTRA Light G64 AGP based on GeForce 4 MX420

The card has 64MB RAM, analog output, traditionally situated on a Mini SSH Type-D board.

Supplied with Windows Me/2000/XP drivers, it will appear in retail (at least, in Japan) in the end of August. Its suggested price is about $182.

19-inch SXGA LCD display from IIYAMA

The new monitor features a-Si TFT matrix supporting max. 1280x1024 resolution (SXGA), 4-port USB hub, 2 DVI-I inputs. The horizontal and vertical viewing angle is 170°, maximum brightness is 250 candles/sq.m, contrast — 600:1, response time — 25 ms, pixel size — 0.28 mm. The monitor provides many gamma correction fucntions, supports "digital antialiasing". The screen can be rotated 70° in vertical plane and situated in portret position.

The size of AS4821DT is 430x240.9x414.3 mm, weight — 9 kg. The approximate retail price is about $1100.

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