CPU3D Review: Antec Three Hundred Black ATX Mid Tower Case

Antec has found some recent success by offering a nice Mid-High end Antec Nine Hundred case. The Nine Hundred is packed with features at a very affordable price. Antec decided to continue with this trend and offer even more of a value package, hence the Antec Three Hundred was brought into existence.

"Overall, I was very impressed with this case. This case targets the budget crowd for only around $50.00 in US funds. Considering that cost, this case brings a ton of features to the table." 

Read the rest of the review ... HERE.

Techreport

"Jon Peddie Research reported last month that graphics processor shipments tumbled in the first quarter by the largest amount since 2005. Judging by Nvidia's latest financial results, though, the drop hasn't quite hurt everybody. For its first 2009 fiscal quarter, which ended on April 27, Nvidia has posted revenue of $1.15 billion and net income of $176.8 million.

That revenue figure represents a 37% year-over-year increase compared to the $844.3 million Nvidia posted for its first 2008 fiscal quarter, and the net income number is 34% bigger than last year. Nvidia didn't do too badly compared to its record-breaking fourth 2008 fiscal quarter, either: its revenue only dipped 4%, and its profits went down around 31%.

Overall, Nvidia seems pretty pleased with itself. In the results announcement, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang calls this first fiscal quarter the company's "best first quarter ever," crediting a 42% year-over-year growth in GPU sales for the good results. Nvidia also saw "record revenue" in its Professional Solutions Business, which grew 44% compared to last year."

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TweakTown

"There are reports floating around the Internet saying that Intel will release its X58 Express chipset in Q4 of this year.

It is said to be the first chipset to support Intel’s desktop Nehalem based Bloomfield processor, which is based on 45nm process technology with four cores, integrated with memory controller, Hyper Threading with up to eight processing threads and 8M cache.

It will be coupled with the ICH10R southbridge as well as triple channel DDR3 memory and dual PCIe 2.0 X16 or quad PCIe 2.0 X8 configurations."

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Legitreviews

"Insipred by the Corsair Performance Analysis of 4GB versus 2GB of memory, we figured it would be fun to see for ourselves how gaming performance is impacted by adding more system memory. We got our hands on a 2GB and a 4GB set of Corsiar DOMINATOR PC2-9136C5 memory modules and set off to see what happens to the average framerate in nine games at 1920x1200 on one of the fastest gaming systems that one can build. "

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The Register

"AMD today launched low power quad-core Opteron processors for the x86 server market, once again playing catch-up with Intel. The chip maker said that the high efficiency (HE) processors have a thermal envelope of 55 watts. That compares to the company’s other quad-core server chips that clock higher thermal envelopes of 105 watts or 75 watts.

AMD is punting the new processor as a data centre manager's dream chip. The firm’s server and workstation veep Randy Allen reckons virtualisation and power consumption represent “keys to solving their overall performance equation”.

The chips are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series for two-, four- and eight-way rack servers and blades.

Rival Intel pipped AMD to the post in March this year when it announced energy-efficient quad-core Xeon L5400 series which it claimed was up to 25 per cent faster than its preceding chips while keeping power consumption at a 50-watt thermal envelope.

Today's debutantes give AMD's frustrated customers something more to chew on while they sit around waiting for the six core processors it has promised for next year, and the 12 core beast it says it will ship in 2010. No word yet on which server vendors will be supporting AMD's new low-power chips, however."

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With the increasing use of SSDs in server applications, a shortage for 16Gb and 32Gb NAND flash chips could become a possibility, the sources commented."

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CPU3D Exclusive: Gigabyte Spring Break Plug-Fest 2008

CPU3D is proud to present an exclusive coverage of Gigabyte's Spring Break Plug-Fest 2008. This year Gigabyte have gone out of their way, to really promote their up-and-coming motherboards based on Intel's lastest P45 chipset, which is still under NDA. We were invited to attend their exclusive, invitation-only event at their head quarters in Taipei, Taiwan.

"The main purpose of the event was to allow the press and media organisations from around the world, to have an exclusive first look at Gigabyte's new range of up-and-coming P45 based motherboards, which will be released later in June. The whole day was quite quite erratic, with over 22 media representitives from around the world registering at the main reception in Gigabyte's head quarters. The atmosphere was amazing, and the place was buzzing with TV crews, photographers and local press ... all wanting a slice of the action."

Read the rest of this exclusive article ... HERE.

VR-Zone

"After some guys at XtremeSystems and VR-Zone leaked some pictures of the pcb, Hardware-Aktuell compared the length between the GeForce 9900 GTX and the GeForce 9800 GTX. Both are 27 cm long, according to this the pcb is also as long as the GeForce 9800 GX2 or the GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra."

DailyTech

"In early April, Microsoft made a lot of OEM and consumers happy with the announcement that Windows XP Home would live on in ultra-low-cost PCs (ULPCs) until June 30, 2010. The rise of such low-cost machines as the ASUS Eee PC -- which primarily runs on a Linux-based operating system -- led to Microsoft's decision to offer Windows XP to OEMs past the already established June 30, 2008 cutoff date.

At the time of the announcement, the only restriction seemingly placed on the reprieve for Windows XP Home seemed to be that the operating system could only be sold on ULPCs. IDG News, however, came into possession of an internal document to OEMs which detail the full extent of the restrictions.

In an effort to protect its Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft is requiring OEMs to abide by the following rules:

HDDs can be no larger than 80GB.
The screen size for the ULPCs can be no larger than 10.2".
Installed memory can be no greater than 1GB.
Processors must use a single core and can be no faster than 1GHz. Processors which are severely handicapped by low-clock speeds (a la the VIA C7-M and Intel Atom) are excluded from this restriction.

In exchange for abiding by these restrictions, Microsoft will charge OEMs just $32 for each license of Windows XP Home used in machines sold in developed markets. For emering markets, that price drops to $26. The deal gets even sweeter if an OEM is a part of Microsoft's Market Development Agreement -- this arrangement cuts another $10 off the license cost of each copy of Windows XP Home."

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Pegatron and Unihan shipped around 2.45 million motherboards/desktop PCs and 730,000 graphics cards in April, while shipping 700,000-750,000 notebooks (Eee PC not included). Since the second quarter is the traditional slow season for the PC market, Asustek expects its revenues for the quarter will see a sequential drop within 5%, while its motherboard shipments, which has the highest gross margin for the company, will also see a drop and relatively reduce the company's overall gross margin to 17-20%."

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