January 7 - 13, 1999
Archive

• Pure3D II Driver (Win9X - version 1.40.03 BETA II - 2.80 MB)

 

The Riva TNT, previously a thorn in our side, now completely FLIES! Yesterday Tim showed me Unreal running rock-solid, and looking fantastic, on a Creative Labs TNT Blaster at 1280x1024 resolution at approximately 25 frames per second! Yes, I really did say 1280x1024 resolution! Seeing it run at such a super-high resolution but with a totally playable frame rate really hit home how amazingly fast it was. It appeared to be supporting every visual effect in our bag of tricks, including multitexturing. There are still a few minor things left to get working properly; gamma adjustment and full-screen switching but these should be fairly minor to do. The visual quality is superb and it will, of course, be significantly faster at more normal resolutions.

 

Intel’s "Bimini" board (say that 5 times out loud, quickly) is their new Socket 370 mobo. It comes with 1 AGP, 2 PCI, and 1 PCI/ISA shared slot. Yup, a true bargain basement motherboard aimed at OEM’s. It comes with a Creative Labs Sound Blaster PCI64V chip built in, perfect for those who worship at the altar of mediocrity. With two DIMM slots, it can support an amazing 256megs of ram (which I tested it with). However, as with all Intel motherboards, the build quality is high. The board comes with rather huge capacitors, high quality connectors, and no 90-degree bends in the PCB traces. If only Abit would learn to build boards like this. Then again…

 

• M II-233 $45
• M II-266 $47
• M II-300 $52
• M II-333 $60

 

After selecting a CPU, most people pick up the motherboard as an afterthought. The basic motherboard, once considered merely a detail in the computer upgrade scheme, is now one of the most scrutinized categories for the do-it-yourselfer. If the CPU is the heart of the system, then the motherboard is the body.

 

Intel is slated to upgrade the system bus on the Pentium III from the current 100-MHz clock speed to 133 MHz in the second half of the year. This will require a new chipset as well as additional motherboard testing, Chok said. A number of Pentium II systems use an older chipset with a 66-MHz bus, which would have to be changed in an upgrade.

Intel is also scheduled to come out with a faster version of its Advanced Graphics Port (AGP), which will require new motherboard.

 

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 13, 1999--Four of the world's leading technology companies today announced the formation of an open industry alliance to set the direction of Future I/O technology development and implementation.

The Future I/O alliance is creating a new input/output (I/O) standard to maximize data transfer between high-performance servers and peripheral subsystems for the next generation of high-performance systems. The Future I/O standard builds on the decades of collective knowledge and experience possessed by the high-performance computing companies involved in the alliance. In addition, the combined server marketshare of Compaq, Hewlett Packard and IBM will be a significant factor in driving the openness and broad industry support for the Future I/O standard

 

3DMarks	down from 1840 to 1652
CPU Geomerty	down slightly
Rastersizer	down from 1132 to 1076
Game1	down from 29fps to 26fps
Game2	down from 32.3fps to 29.1fps
fill rate	stayed almost the same by .1 down
fill with multi texturing	as above down by .2
2mb render	way down from 177.3fps to 105.1fps
4mb render	way down from 124.3fps to 83.8fps
8mb render	down from 78.5fps to 60.1fps
16mb render	down from 43.1fps to 36.7fps

I guess they actually turned out to be slower instead of faster, according to Derek.

Sources close to Intel have told Sharky Extreme that they have received preliminary silicon for their upcoming 2D/3D graphics chipset, internally called the i752. Current performance is described as "promising" and places the i752 at or around a TNT's level. The i752 will come with "all the up-to-date" features. We take that to mean 32bpp color depth, 2X AGP, TV-out and DVD acceleration. None of these are confirmed and are merely speculation on our part. Intel plans to push the i752 through retail channels via video cards and OEM channels via an integrated processor (a la Voodoo 3 2000). We'll keep you updated as more info becomes available.

 

• Diamond Viper V550 Driver (Win9X - version 4.10.01.0245 - 3.2 MB)

 

The performance of the 440LX chipset on the HOT-683 is a hair away from being as fast as the 440BX on most other Pentium II and Socket-370 boards, the performance difference is not great enough to warrant any sort of complaint.  It looks like the premature death of the 440LX chipset has been put in plain black and white with its reintroduction on Socket-370 motherboards.

 

EMB sent in an email to say that Abit has confirmed that the next BH6 bios will support the 6X multiplier that the Celeron 400 needs. Remember that the Celeron is multiplier locked, so if you set the board to the default 4X setting, it will still work. No word was said on when the release of the bios will be, but I would expect soon.

 

Attempts at overclocking both of the chips with conventional cooling methods has been in vain because of extreme heat issues. Attempting to run either processor at any speed above their rating has caused them to get hot enough to fry an egg. Since it has been extremely cold here in Ohio, I thought that I may have a solution to my heat problems. I dragged my PC (with an open case) outside into the below 0°f temperatures and placed a household fan blowing into the case. Before everyone starts emailing me with worries of condensation, you need to understand that when it is that cold even moisture freezes. Just simple chores like breathing leave create the effect that I am a chain smoking Marlboro Man.

Adaptec has introduced two new Ultra2 SCSI cards. The 2930U2, designed for the desktop PC, is an affordable 80 MB per second solution with connectivity to all SCSI peripherals. The 3950U2, Adaptec's first 64-bit PCI SCSI card, doubles Ultra2 throughput, providing 160 MB per second performance to enterprise servers. Both products are available at prices comparable to previous generation SCSI products.

The 32-bit PCI, single-channel 2930U2 SCSI card is Adaptec's lowest priced Ultra2 SCSI card, and is designed to connect common desktop peripherals such as hard disk drives, removable drives, CDR, and DVD drives. Because the 2930U2 incorporates Adaptec's SpeedFlex technology, 80 MB/second throughput can be realized regardless of the kinds of peripherals being used. Without SpeedFlex, users concurrently running Ultra2 Low Voltage Differential (LVD) hard disk drives and common (non-Ultra2) desktop peripherals cannot achieve this maximum performance. No other SCSI card on the market has the combined connector design and SpeedFlex-like technology which make this possible.

 

Overall, we were impressed with the Tsunami's features and stability.  Celeron owners might want to shy away from this board because of the lack of voltage settings if they wish to push the 500Mhz range, but PII owners should seriously take it into consideration.

Yes, we have been doing a lot of soul searching lately regarding the graphics business. We truly love it but it hasn't been loving us back. The saturated Voodoo2 market over the summer gave us quite a start. The prices dropped like a rock and the channel was stuffed all summer. The SPECTRA 2500 sales have been great, in fact, too great. We under forecasted and ran out of product. Based on the summer experience with Voodoo2 boards, a decision was made to not restart manufacturing because boards would not be available until late January at the earliest. We had no idea demand would remain so strong. As time slips away and prices for TNT boards start to erode, we felt that we should not step back in. Our market in Japan remains strong and we will continue in that market with the 3200 and other products

 

• Hercules Terminator Beast Driver (Win9X - version 0.99 - 1.92 MB)

• The eTower 300c, priced at $399 (after rebate), features a Cyrix M-II 300 MHz MMX processor, 512K Level 2 cache, 32 MB memory, 2.1 GB hard drive, 24X CD-ROM, 3.5 inch 1.44 MB floppy drive, 56K fax/modem, ATI Rage IIc 3D AGP graphics with 4MB SDRAM, Crystal 3D audio, two USB ports, three expansion slots, a keyboard and mouse. Software includes Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Works, and 30 days free Internet access by Netcom.
• The eTower 333c, priced at $499, features a Cyrix M-II 333 MHz MMX processor, 512K L2 cache, 3.2 GB hard drive, and all of the other components and software as in the eTower 300c.
• The eTower 333i, priced at $499 (after rebate), features an Intel Celeron A 333 MHz processor with 128 KB on-chip cache, 3.2 GB hard drive, and all of the other components and software as in the eTower 300c.
• The eTower 333id, priced at $599 (after rebate), features an Intel Celeron A 333 MHz processor with 128KB on-chip cache, 32 MB memory, 4.3 GB hard drive, 5X DVD drive, Mediamatics DVD Express software decoder, ATI Rage Pro-Turbo 2X AGP with 4MB SDRAM, and all of the other components and software as in the eTower 300c.

Ok, so what do we have?  Same glasses, more features, more games, better clarity, tighter controls, and the ability to turn any Voodoo 2 into a Wicked 3D Voodoo 2.    Hmmm, not bad considering that the price is still the same, and it's only a $29 upgrade for existing customers.  I still think this is a specialty item, but if you absolutely have to have the most immersive 3D experience around, you should check these eyeSCREAM glasses out.  After all, seeing is believing.

 

Based on the need for more expensive testing and packaging, Hashimoto said the Rambus solution could result in about a $100 premium for PC systems, compared with a similar system stuffed with synchronous DRAMs. The Rambus architecture can double the memory bandwidth in a typical system, according to Rambus (Mountain View, Calif.).

"The thing we must watch is how many customers will pay the $100 difference to get improved graphics," Hashimoto said. "Perhaps Intel will price the CPU and chip set so that the system cost comes out to be more attractive, with the promised performance increase. My personal view is that we will see shipments of about 150 million to 200 million Rambus memories this year."

 

Integrated into a number of MicroATX mainboards and at the core of a number of low end graphics accelerator cards, the SiS6326 family of graphics processors is targeted for the sub-$800.00 consumer PC market.  The SiS6326 family, which consists of SiS6326, SiS6326AGP and SiS6326DVD,  provides high integration, good performance, as well as feature-rich 3D/2D graphics video acceleration and DVD playback compatibility.   While in no way is the chip on par with current 'next generation' graphics accelerators, the SiS6326 nonetheless, well provides a cost-effective, multi-tiered solution as both an upgrade or integrated graphics platform for PC OEMs and endusers alike..

 

f you only have 2 speakers, the card will still work its magic, although not to the same extent. It does this by bouncing sound waves off of your ear. The downside to this technique is that it is dependent upon the shape of your ear. Thus, some people can hear things in 3-dimensional space with just two speakers, while others can't tell the difference between A3D and regular stereo sound at all. But when you move up to 4 speakers, it's a whole different ballgame. With 4 speakers you're able to hear things behind you and KNOW that they're there. It completely changes the gaming experience the way true 3D video did.

 

WinChip 4
This will be the product that proves if IDT/Centaur can kick their performance up a level and overcome their "also ran" status.   This will be an entirely new core designed for higher megahertz.  It'll have a larger 128KB of L1 cache and will begin at 400MHz to 500MHz.  The second version of this part will be a die shrink from .25u to .18u in the year 2000.  Speeds in the die shrunk part are estimated to be from 500 to 700MHz.  Since this is targeted for the year 2000, details about specific features will undoubtedly change and evolve.  We'll try and update as more details become available.

 

What about using higher voltages? Without a Socket-370 motherboard capable of adjusting voltage settings, we were limited in this test to the Slot-1 chip. We then took the Slot-1 Celeron and placed it into an Abit BH6, the current choice of 2.2v Celeron overclockers. At 2.1v, we hit success at 550Mhz (5.5 x 100). Ah, the freedom of multipliers. Without the cheat of an engineering sample, this speed wouldn't be possible on the 400, as it sits squarely between 75Mhz and 83Mhz. At 2.2v, the CPU would not POST.

The 366MHz PPGA part AnandTech tested made it up to 458MHz reliably (83.3MHz x 5.5), unfortunately the part did not hit 550MHz reliably enough to be considered an option. One thing must be taken into consideration, this is a single processor, and there are quite a few out there. Once Intel's manufacturing process matures, the Celeron 366 may even grow to be the replacement for our beloved 300A's running at 450MHz.  From the reports of Celeron 366 users all over the world, the chances that the 550MHz Celeron will become the next big thing to hit the tweaking world are good, for you Slot-1 users out there, don't worry, the Celeron 366 and 400 are both supposedly availabe in slot-1 formats as well, so keep your eyes peeled (although preliminary reports suggest that overclocking the 400 is about as useful as overclocking the first Celeron 333's, it could work, but chances are, it won't to the degree you want it to).

 

If You didn’t have a life outside of Computers in 1998 You Were in demand. With the low numbers of highly knowledgable Computer Users companies and New Computer Users needed The Computer Geek like They needed Superman wayback. Possesing Knowledge New Users needed to connect to the “net” and get email The Geeks became Gods. While Computers become more widespread Around the world the ones that know will make it big. With the Industry moving so fast only the Strong Geeks will survive. Adepting To new technologies will only help You succeed in the Industry. Finally We don’t have to be subjected to jokes from Our peers. Now they need our help to configure an Operating System or Install Hot new Hardware in their Rigs. If You are a closet geek And didn’t come out yet You missed out,but don’t worry 1999 Is another year to take the world by storm.!

 

Both sides share a common goal: delivering a robust, high-capacity highway that links ever faster I/O subsystems to increasingly muscular processors. And both said they would negotiate any of their technical specs to reach a unifying deal on a single standard. But for now the two groups are locked in a high-stakes battle for the lucrative PC server turf, with both sides digging in their heels on the issue of intellectual property.

"There will be a bus war," said Kimball Brown a chief server analyst for Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Group Inc. A protracted stalemate could threaten Intel's business model, which is fragmented between Celeron CPUs that sell for as little as $70 at one extreme and high-margin Xeon chips with price tags up to $3,600 at the other.

Intel admits it has been only modestly successful in the former business and just started the server business in earnest last summer. "It's bad enough how they are doing in desktops, if they fail in servers they are really in trouble," said analyst Brown.

 

• Intel i740 Reference Driver (Win9X - version 3.2w - 900KB)

 

The low-end 320 has up to two Intel Pentium II Xeon processors running at 450 MHz, up to 1 gigabyte of RAM, and a 6-GB or 14.4-GB hard drive. The 540 has up to four 450-MHz Xeon processors and up to 2 GB of RAM. Both systems will run off-the-shelf Windows NT applications.

 

The real problem comes when they are compared to a newer sound card such as the SoundBlaster Live!, as shown by the following table. Since the Live! handles 32 voices in hardware, and the USB speakers must do it all in software, they use a great deal more CPU. In fact, on a Pentium II 400MHz running a test with 32 voices at 44kHz the USB speakers use 71% of the CPU! The SoundBlaster Live! only uses 5%. So, what does this mean for most users? If you are a game player this is a major problem. As new games use more and more voices your CPU use will increase significantly. If you are a casual game player and mainly use the speakers for music or business audio the CPU use should not be an issue. As a side note to Winamp fans, an increase of approximately 2-5% CPU use was shown when playing MP3s through the USB interface on the 450MHz Celeron A computer.

 

• Diamond Rio PMP300 Software (Win9X - version 1.0 - 1.8MB)

 

• Dynamite TNT driver and utilities (Win9X - version 0.56.0048 - 3.47 MB)

 

You can see that the Gigabyte and Diamond cards were able to run at the maximum available memory clock setting of 133MHz.  The Gigabyte tolerated higher graphics clock settings, I believe due to its slightly different fan and heatsink design.  The Diamond card has a sharp looking fan sunk into heatsink, whereas the Gigabyte fan sits on top of the heatsink in a more traditional design.  The effect of the Diamond design is that there are almost no heat-radiating fins on the heatsink or around the fan.  It’s like a copy of the TennMax Lasagna design, except that the TennMax has an array of fine fins around the fan.  The bottom line is that I don’t think the Diamond design cools the graphics chip as well.

 

Promise markets the FastTrak as an EIDE performance booster rather promoting it with its technical description, which is a smart move considering that most consumers have no idea what an EIDE RAID controller is. RAID may sound like something you'd use to keep ants out of your kitchen, but it really stands for redundant array of independent disks. RAID is a standard for using multiple smaller-capacity drives in place of one premium-priced larger drive to boost performance and improve data reliability. It's been used for years in SCSI-based network servers, but the higher cost of SCSI has kept it out of the EIDE-dominated desktop market.

 

With the 5184 mainboard, MSI has added an important factor to the repertoire of high end AT form factor mainboards. The 4 - 2- 1 layout with the possibility to run older type EDO memory in the form of SIMMs at AGP speed and still go for the higher bus speeds offers a perfect solution for everybody looking for a simple upgrade solution. Solid built, excellent documentation and the ease at which this board can be set up make it a serious contender in the fight for market shares. The enormous stability adds to the appeal that this board might have for the potential overclocker and the performance itself is among the best in the business. Whether or not this board will become the commercial success that it should be will, however, depend on a variety of other factors as well.

 

Intel has warned that 366MHz and 400MHz Celerons it released early this week are likely to have clock locking built into them.

That follows a report on hardware site The Overclocking Page that two enthusiasts who have what they say are retail CPUs, are able to overclock them to speeds of 550MHz and 600MHz.

An Intel representative confirmed the company was building locks into future processors. "We're not telling people exactly how we're doing it because we don't want them to break the method," he said.

"Early samples [of the 366MHz and 400MHz] parts are not clock locked, but productions will be," he said.

"Customers may find that if they go out to buy one in order to overclock it," it will not work, he added.

 

• Canopus Total3D 128V Driver (Win9X - version 2.01.01  - 5.01 MB)

 

The CelHO cooling unit is constructed of .46 thermal resistant alloy and dual ball bearing fans, sounds good, right? Well it is quite good the heatsink is designed very well, the grooves are in great places to transfer heat away from the processor. So lets place some GOOP (read my review of the T-Rex P2 Cooler for more information on GOOP) and get ready to fire her up

 

With all the talk of Voodoo2 SLI vs. TNT on the Net, many hardcore gamers failed to realize the incredible price/performance ratio of the various Banshee boards. Their 2D performance is on par with the TNT and other than the odd dual-texture game, 3D speeds outstripped a single Voodoo2. At prices of under $90, there wasn’t a better deal on the market. The most important aspect is that it brought inexpensive Voodoo compatibility and power to masses through both the retail and OEM markets. When you are playing games with a TNT or Voodoo2 you tend to forget that the majority of gamers don’t have that kind of 3D power under the hood. The Banshee may not get the press of the TNT or Voodoo2, but it’s the first card I’d recommend to someone with a Trident 2D card and $90 in their pocket.

 

Creative's Graphics Blaster Riva TNT comes with a full 16MB of SDRAM framebuffer memory in both AGP and PCI flavors. The card I tested enjoys full x2 AGP implementation with sideband support, and on the surface seemed much different than the OEM Viper 550 (reviewed last month).  To begin with there seems to be a good deal more real estate on the Creative card, as well as a somewhat stouter and more evenly thermal pasted heatsink covering the TNT chip itself.  The chip is surrounded by 8 - 2MB Samsung -7ns SDRAMs that provide that generous 16MB framebuffer and while not quite as fast as powerful SGRAM, Creative in no way skimped, providing one of the fastest Video SDRAMs currently available.

The new Zip 250 Drive is the same size as the original model, and the SCSI version can connect to existing Iomega Zip Zoom SCSI cards ($50 street). The SCSI version transfers at a maximum rate of 1.7 MBps, compared with 0.3 MBps for the parallel port version. The Zip 250 Drive is backward-compatible with the original 100MB disks: On our tests, the SCSI version successfully read existing data from 100MB Zip disks and saved data on 100MB format disks that were readable on 100MB Zip Drives.

 

As part of a "branding announcement" set for Monday, Jan. 11, Intel Corp. is expected to officially name its next-generation Pentium chip, code-named Katmai, the "Pentium III." While the company declined to comment on the announcement, one industry source called the name "the best kept secret in Silicon Valley."

Due to the high lock at 6x, on this particular unit 6 x 100 is not obtainable. The computer failed to POST at all, and I was forced to reset using the Clear CMOS jumper. It seems that 600Mhz is just too much right now, although I'd expect better luck with a Celeron 366, which will be locked at 5.5x - 5.5 x 100 should be obtainable with luck and good cooling.

 

Windows 95/98 driver for retail 4400 version 1.52. The following drivers have been released by STB compatibility, but are not yet WHQL certified. This new driver addresses issues involving screen overlay, high resolution AVI, DOS box, and DVD playback. In addition, these drivers solve issues involving blue screen errors and lockups in "Quakeworld".

• STB Velocity 4400 With TV-Out Driver (Win9X - version 1.52 - 1.1 MB)
• STB Velocity 4400 Without TV-Out Driver (Win9X - version 1.52 - 1.37)

 

IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Pinnacle Micro, Inc. today introduced Flex, a new storage device that reads and writes to 5.2 Gigabyte discs, and reads 8 different CD and DVD formats. Each double-sided cartridge holds up to 2.6 GB of data, audio, or video per side on a single, low-cost DVD-RAM cartridge. Files can be added, deleted, and edited just like a floppy disc. Flex provides an ideal solution for backup and archiving, or the distribution of large amounts of data in an inexpensive, rewritable format.

 

Running a dual Celeron system appears to be very well possible. You need to drill a hole and solder a few wires on the Celeron board, but when all that is done you've got yourself a really nice high-end system at an incredible price. Naturally a dual-CPU system won't give a 2X increase in real word, but in CPU intensive applications the difference is very well noticeable. The downside of all this? Well, it's not really something I'd recommend to everyone. It's precision work and if you mess up you might might damage the CPU and/or other parts in your computer. But if you're not afraid to drill and solder a bit, this is great fun.

 

The contenders in the shootout consist of the Quantum Raven AGP, baring 3Dfx's first 2D/3D chipset, the Banshee. 3Dfx's flagship chipset, the Voodoo 2, is also present in the form of the PCI Diamond Monster 2. The Creative Labs Graphics Blaster TNT AGP sporting the nVidia Riva TNT chipset. Also participating in the review was Hercules' Terminator BEAST AGP, a card based on S3's Savag3 3D chipset.

 

After all is said and done, Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 speakers are definitely a superb set of speakers. Take in account the fact that they support Dolby Digital surround with clear and crisp output make these speakers a winner. While the cost of a Dolby Digital receiver and speakers for a home theater can easily cost well over $1500, Cambridge Soundworks has brought that figure down to a very reasonable $299 for the computer. Couple these speakers with the ideal combination of Creative's PC-DVD 5X Dxr2 kit, or another DVD kit with Dolby Digital support and you're set.

 

Separately, Miner said Intel expects to ship before June its long-awaited Profusion chip set for building eight-way multiprocessing systems based on its Pentium II Xeon microprocessors. The chip-set design — the crown jewel of Corollary Inc. (Irvine, Calif.), which Intel acquired in October 1997 — is now in a final validation phase. It will mark Intel's first attempt to expand its so-called Standard High-Volume Server platform to the scale of an eight-way system.