The INQ

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CPU3D Preview: Sapphire Radeon HD3870X2 Atomic with 1Gb DDR3 and Watercooling

Watercooling your processor is one thing, but watercooling a graphics card is another. Most enthusiasts will use their existing watercooling setup to accomodate the additional watercooling for the graphics card. This is normally how one would do it. However, Sapphire has made it easy for any gamer or enthusiast who wishes to use watercooling on their graphics card by introducing a pre-installed watercooling system on their Atomic series.

           

 

The Sapphire Radeon HD3870X2 Atomic graphics card based on the Radeon HD3870X2 (RV680) dual GPUs and comes with 1Gb of DDR3 memory. The pre-installed watercooling kit includes a L-shaped black unit which house the pump, resevoir, radiator and a 120mm cooling fan. We're expecting good performance from this card. Watch out for our review coming soon ... in the meantime, take a look at the photo gallery below.

DailyTech

"Rumors began circulating this week that HP was in talks concerning a possible buy-out of EDS. While neither EDS nor HP was willing yesterday to get specific on the talks HP did issue a press release on the subject yesterday stating, “HP today confirmed that it is engaged in advanced discussions with Electronic Data Systems Corporation regarding a possible business combination involving the two companies.”

“There can be no assurances that an agreement will be reached or that a transaction will be consummated. HP does not intend to comment further until an agreement is reached or discussions are terminated.”

The acquisition of EDS by HP makes sense to many since HP has openly stated that it intends to increase its reach as a service provider. EDS is one of the top service providers in the It industry and was one of the founders of IT outsourcing. EDS’ 2007 revenue was $22.1 billion and HP had stated revenues in 2007 of $104 billion making both companies big players in the IT industry.

HP announced today that it had come to an agreement between its board and the board of EDS to purchase EDS at $25 per share placing an approximate value on EDS of $13.9 billion. HP expects that the transaction will close in the second half of 2008 pending domestic and foreign regulatory approval."

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The Tech Report

"Recently, we've heard faint whispers that AMD could spin off its manufacturing business into a new company—whispers that recent statements from AMD CEO Hector Ruiz would seem to corroborate. Now, DigiTimes quotes industry sources as saying AMD will outsource more of its processor production in the second half of the year.

AMD has been getting other firms to make some of its CPUs for some time (just ask Chartered Semiconductor), but DigiTimes claims the chipmaker has picked an unlikely partner this time: TSMC, a.k.a. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the pure-play foundry that already handles the lion's share of graphics processor manufacturing for both AMD and Nvidia. DigiTimes says the foundry has begun testing a silicon-on-insulator fabrication process in preparation for AMD CPU orders.

AMD partners reportedly believe further CPU production outsourcing might let AMD auction off some of its manufacturing equipment, thus cutting operational costs. Interestingly, DigiTimes says its sources also claim AMD wants to return to profitability in the first half of 2009 and increase its global market share to 30% by the second quarter of the same year. The latest word from AMD itself is that the company aims to become operationally profitable in the second half of this year."

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The increase in outsourcing could allow AMD to sell off some of its manufacturing equipment and help lower the company's operating costs, noted sources at AMD's partners. AMD's current goals are to return to profitability in the first half of 2009 and to grab back a 30% worldwide market share by the second quarter in 2009, noted the sources. AMD had not responded for comment at the time of publication."

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CPU3D Review: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU Cooler

Our CPU3D review team takes a look at the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU Cooler. Yes, it's another cooler featuring Xigmatek's HDT (Heatpipe Direct Touch) technology, and a 120mm ultra quiet fan. We compare it with an ACF7 Pro and a standard stock cooler. It should produce some good cooling performance.

" Overall a good cooler for a good price. I could recommend this to anyone looking for a sub £30 cooler or someone who is looking for out of the box silence ... "

Read the rest of the review ... HERE.

Yahoo News

"Engineers testing a recently launched Japanese data communications satellite have succeeded in establishing a two-way Internet link running at 1.2G bps (bits per second) each way, they said Monday.

The speed represents a record for satellite communications, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.

The tests were carried out on May 2 as part of verification of the Kizuna satellite. In the tests data was transmitted on two 622M-bps channels both up to the satellite and down to a receiving antenna. Together the combined data transmission speed was 1.2G bps.

Kizuna was launched on Feb. 23 and is intended to provide high-speed Internet links to homes and offices in remote areas, to organizations as a back-up during natural disasters and to improve regional communications links in Asia."

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Fuzilla

"It looks like the GT200 or D10U card will sell for US$499 and it will be the perfect replacement for the Geforce 9800GTX. The cards based on the GT200 will sell for $499 and the cards are sampled and work well. Nvidia plans to show the cards to journalists in the last week of May and it’s highly likely to see the launch in June, with retail availability."

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Hexus

"Microsoft's third, and final, service pack for its Windows XP operating system may have been a little late in arriving, but delays weren't enough to ensure a problem-free delivery to the millions of XP users.

Following the arrival of XP SP3 on May 7th, various complaints surfaced from users suffering with endless reboots and system crashes. A situation not too dissimilar to the launch of Windows Vista SP1, which also led to various users suffering from endless reboots.

This time around, the problem has been narrowed to HP machines running AMD processors. Though angry consumers have been quick to show their frustrations at both AMD and Microsoft, it now appears that neither are to blame.

The problem, it seems, is that HP has been shipping desktop PCs with a Windows install tailored for Intel-based machines. The pre-loaded operating system is said to feature an Intel power-management driver, Intelppm.sys, which tries to load after upgrading to SP3 and thus causes endless reboots.

Microsoft, however, appears to have known about the issue since May 6th, a day prior to the worldwide release of SP3 via Windows Update. It was then that Microsoft published a related knowledge base article, #888372, on its Help and Support website.

Microsoft's current solution is for users suffering from the problem to boot into safe mode, in which the problematic Intel driver wouldn't be loaded. Once in Windows, a simple registry fix should solve the issue.

AMD, through no fault of its own, has been on the receiving end of most of the bad publicity surrounding the XP SP3 woes. Hoping to clear up the matter, Julia Clark, AMD representative, says:

"The problem is the result of applying a non-AMD processor Windows operating system image to AMD processor-based PCs; this is a configuration issue only and not an HP platform, AMD processor, or operating system issue. The number of systems impacted to date is minimal, Microsoft expects to issue a fix within a few days, and more importantly, we have not seen users experience data loss as a result of this issue."

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The Register

"Intel is working its close ties to Google for solid state storage drive sales, according to a report. Sources have told Digitimes that Google plans to test out SSD storage in an effort to lower power consumption at its vast data centers. The ad broker-cum-search engine will turn to Intel for the SSD gear. And, if true, that's great news for Intel, which hopes to make a run at turning SSDs into a big business.

As the report tells it, Intel will supply flash memory, while Marvell will provide the controllers. For what it's worth, our sources tell us that Digitimes report is flat out wrong.

Still, it's interesting to speculate about Google paying for the more expensive SSDs on the data center scale. Like many service providers, Google is finding that lowering energy costs is its top priority."

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