Photo of the day: Xabre 600 in our videolab

Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 and TM8000: roadmap details

Archos announces Ondio MP3 player

TFT LCD prices to remain the same in December

Cisco announces new hardware and software for convergent enterprise networks

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe: Granite Bay in our lab

MSI announces E7205 Master-F on Granite Bay

The decreasing demand pulls mobo shipments down

Photo of the day: Xabre 600 in our videolab

But everything is good in its season. Introducing our photos of Xabre 600 for now:

Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 and TM8000: roadmap details

Japanese PC Watch posted the interview with David R. Ditzel, Transmeta´s CTO, revealing the additional information on the project along with the reasons to exclude the TM6000 core with integrated GPU from the roadmap.

Again, Astro (TM8000) chips will feature 256-bit internal data representation, process up to 8 instructions per clock unlike TM5800 (128-bit representation and 4 instructions/clock). Astro volume shipments are scheduled to mid-2003, the chip will be made at TSMC facilities using 0.13-micron process technology. TM8000-based notebooks will appear in Q3 2003. Excerpts from the interview are below.

• TM6000 core was excluded from the roadmap as prospectless. As you know, Transmeta planned to integrated a simple 2D core to offer the core as a low-power blade solution. But the increased energy consumption and more complex design seemed prospectless. Such graphics would have been even more obsolete for home apps, as not meeting all the requirements.
• After the release of TM8000, TM8000 and TM5800 lines will be parallel for some time, as the TM5800 line is to continue with lower-power models.
• Currently TM5800 clock reached 1GHz, however Transmeta stresses that the higher performance is not only the result of higher clock, but also due to improvements of Code Morphing Software (CMS) for converting x86 into internal VLIW words. Besides, the current CMS 4.2 is optimized for Windows XP. New CMS version is expected in spring, featuring more floating-point optimizations. The company also works on implementing additional security instructions into CMS.

Archos announces Ondio MP3 player

Ondio has 128Mb memory and FM tuner, enabling real-time MP3 encoding. It’s interesting that the player features 30-sec buffer in case you missed the beginning of a broadcast, etc. Memory expansion is provided with MultiMedia Card slot.

Archos Ondio dimensions are 81x47x25 mm, weight – 60 g, expected price – about 250 euro.

Source: Clubic

TFT LCD prices to remain the same in December

Taiwanese analysts tie the inceased demand for TFT LCD panels with some stock depletion instead of the actual customer demand increase.

As for the retail prices, according to messages from Taiwan, ViewSonic announced a significant discount for its large-inch models – about 35-40%. Before the X-mas the company offers 18" LCD for the price of 17". Thus ViewSonic 18" models got cheaper from NT$30,000 to NT$18,800 i.e. from about $860 to $540.

Source: The DigiTimes

Cisco announces new hardware and software for convergent enterprise networks

The product list includes:

• 7905G IP phone. To be released to the market in December for $165
• Cisco IP Phone Messenger 1.1. Instant messaging for IP-phone talks. Expected availability – next year.
• Call Manager 3.3, supporting up to 30,000 IP phones in a single IP-PBX cluster. The updated software supports up to 10 clusters, i.e. up to 300,000 users. Besides, the new versions has additional features for better compatibility with traditional PBX. Call Manager 3.3, which shipments are scheduled to December, will cost from $4,000 to $24,000.
• Cisco 7845 Media Convergence Server (MCS) for Call Manager. Each MCS supports 7,500 IP phones. A cluster can contain up to 4 servers, a group – up to 10 clusters. 7845 MCS will cost from $40,000 to $47,500 (up to 5,000 and 7,500 users supported, respectively).
• Cisco Unity 4.0 unified messaging, supporting Lotus Notes. The previous version supported Microsoft Exchange only. Scheduled for the release to the next month, Unity 4.0 will cost $135 per user
• Cisco IP/VC 3500 videoconferencing for small businesses or branch offices, featuring improved audio and video signalling along with the dynamic GUI for monitoring videoconferencing sessions through Web browsers and listing online users. Cisco IP/VC 3500, which shipments should start before the month-end, will cost from $13,000 to $25,000.
• Cisco Conference Connection 1.2 for audioconferencing through Cisco CallManager. Users will be able to connect to meetings with Web browser on Cisco IP phone or PC.
• Cisco ICM CTI drivers for connecting ICM (Intelligent Contact Management) to Siebel 7 CRM systems. Expected this month, its minimal price will make $1,100.

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe: Granite Bay in our lab

P4G8X Deluxe supports Hyper-Threading, 3.06GHz Pentium 4 with 533MHz FSB, up to 4Gb of dual-channel DDR333, AGP 8õ slot. Besides, it supports ASUS proptietary technologies, including multi-language BIOS, CPU parameters recall (C.P.R.), ASUS Q-Fan, ASUS EZ Flash, ASUS EZ Plug, ASUS POST, AGP warning LED, and overclocking capabilities.

Being the Deluxe board, it has the complete feature set: Serial ATA, Broadcom’s Gigabit LAN, IEEE 1394 ports. As it’s early to speak of the performance, introducing photos instead:

MSI announces E7205 Master-F on Granite Bay

Like other Intel E7205 boards, E7205 Master-F supports Intel Pentium 4 with 533MHz FSB, Hyper-Threading, dual-channel DDR266 (up to 4Gb), has AGP Pro 50/AGP 8x slot, 5 PCI slots, Gigabit Ethernet LAN (Intel 82540EM), and Mini PCI for SCSI Add-In Card (Adaptec AIC-7892B SCSI).

The decreasing demand pulls mobo shipments down

According to Goldman Sachs´ analytic report, November mobo shipments of Asustek make about 1.55 million units, Elitegroup’s shipments – about 1.85 million units, Gigabyte and MSI are to ship 1.25 and 1.4 million units, respectively.

The second-tier makers will be differently affected by the market downturn. For example, DFI’s November shipments are expected to make about 85% of October shipments. Shuttle and Jetway Information will have shipment volumes reduced as well, though the companies plan to ship other products instead. Chaintech is sure the volumes will remain the same.

Though it’s not that bad despite the downturn. Mobo makers already focus on spring upturn that, they believe, will be tied to the releases of Intel and AMD products, i.e. to the transition to Intel Springdale and AMD K8.

Source: The DigiTimes

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