Stylus Pro 10600: new wide-format printer from Epson

Graphics card makers to move to DDR-II

THX certified acoustics from Logitech

SPARKLE´s SP-7200T6-PT/128MB with a SCART adapter

The first photo of Athlon XP 2700+ 333 MHz FSB

Stylus Pro 10600: new wide-format printer from Epson

Epson Stylus Pro 10600 bases on the mechanism of Epson Stylus Pro 10000. It supports Photo Accelerator Technology for high-quality RGB printing even with a low-end PC. Maximum print speed of the novelty makes up to 231 sq.ft/hour, and up to 72 sq.ft/hour for photo-printing. The device utilizes Micro Piezo DX3 heads with dynamic drop size, enabling Epson Stylus Pro 10600 to provide 6-color printing on up to 44-inch paper at actual 1440x720 dpi resolution.

Epson Stylus Pro 10600 is expected for sale in September 2002. The retail price of a basic package will make about $9995. The additional Fiery Spark Professional Software RIP server will be shipped for about $2995.

Graphics card makers to move to DDR-II

Joseph Macri, the head of ATI Technologies research department and JEDEC memory committee chairman, has recently said that next week, on JEDEC quarterly meeting in Vancouver, the committee will discuss the claim for graphics DDR-II adoption. According to Macri, the committee plans to hasten the consideration to adopt the standard before the year-end.

He said that currently almost all JEDEC resources are developing DDR-II drafts for PC system memory. At the same time, Macri said that graphics DDR-II doesn´t require such a multi-level system compatibility, necessary for DDR-II modules, chipsets, and motherboards. It requires a minor change in DDR-II base specifications to adopt it for graphics. The initiative also comes from graphics card makers, interested in the quickest adoption of DDR-II standard.

Infineon Technologies and Elpida Memory representatives have declared their support of the graphics DDR-II promotion. They say that using 1.8 V supply voltage (against 2.4 V of DDR-I), on-die termination (ODT), 4-bit prefetch and other DDR-II advancements might push grsphics card performance.

The current promotion of graphics DDR-II by JEDEC happens when most memory makers have just developed their DDR-II chips. Currently only Samsung Electronics ship its 533 Mbps graphics DDR-II samples. Elpida have already presented its 512 Mbit PC DDR-II chips, but haven´t yet reported about its graphics version. Other DRAM makers plan to announce their graphics DDR-II samples only early in 2003.

On the other hand, graphics card makers claim that DDR-II solutions production is delayed only because this memory is not present in the market. According to ATI, the company already has a ready design of DDR-II memory controller.

Leading analysts believe that DDR-II will add life to graphics card sales. They think that DDR-II will dominate as the graphics card memory by Q3 2003.

THX certified acoustics from Logitech

New 5.1-channel high-end system will be THX certified. Z-680 will feature cables for DVD players, CD, Playstation2 and Xbox, as well as for PCs, with 2-, 4- or 6-channel soundcards. It´s interesting that the new system can be connected to several devices at once.

To provide full 5.1-channel compatibility Z-680 features Dolby Digital and DTS encoders. The approximate price will be 250 euro.

Source: Guru 3D

SPARKLE´s SP-7200T6-PT/128MB with a SCART adapter

Sparkle SP-7200T6-PT/128MB bases on GeForce4 Ti4600, has 128MB DDR, analog, digital DVI, ô÷ out. Now about the unusual.

First of all, it has a SCART adapter. VGA-out is situated on a separate board.

Second, the package is very unusual.

Third, note the original cooling system. It enables to raise memory clock rate up to 680 MHz, that´s 30 MHz higher than that of a usual GeForce4 Ti4600 from the same company (SP7200T6).

In Tokyo shops Sparkle SP-7200T6-PT/128MB costs 35800-36800 yens (about $300-$305).

The first photo of Athlon XP 2700+ 333 MHz FSB

How do you know, it has 333 MHz FSB? Simple: the 71st page of the document about Athlon XP processors indicates that 100 MHz chips are marked B, 133 MHz chips — C. Logics suggests that D stands for 166 MHz or 333 MHz DDR processors. There´s no data about markings of 512KB L2 cache of Barton-based processors, however 3 of this sample, according to the same document, indicates 256KB L2 cache.

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