HardwarePapers.com - This Week in Review

Audiophiles listen in on Microsoft's efforts

The software giant gains support for its audio initiative as it works with partners to improve sound quality on PCs and portable devices. Microsoft also announced the availability of a high definition audio driver based on a specification developed by Intel. As digital music becomes more common, and consumers look to the PC or devices synchronizing with computers as the central repositories for their content, the complexity of differing formats and connections can be a proble

Foundry eliminates speed bumps on new Net

The company will announce on Monday upgrades to its Ethernet switches supporting IPv6 to make sure they don't suffer from performance issues. Foundry plans to announce a hardware upgrade to switches supporting Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) to make sure they don't suffer from performance issues. The company is introducing the new capability in switching modules for its two newest high-end switches, the BigIron MG8 and NetIron 40G.

Nocona, late and rather mediocre...

As numerous reports have indicated, Intel's Nocona, the big workstation/server brother of "Prescott" (Pentium 4 E), will arrive a few months later than expected, in Q3 of this year.
Nocona is based on the same core as Prescott, and will feature a 800 MHz FSB unlike the older Xeons, which are still limited to a 533 MHz FSB. It also features the new 64 bit extensions, compatible with AMD64.

Intel Trims Windows 98, ME Support by i915, i925-series Chipsets

Intel Corp.'s upcoming chipsets code-named Alderwood and Grantsdale will not work on Microsoft outdated operating systems reportedly. While the news does not affect a lot of end-users, this is a yet another indication that the industry needs to transit to newer software technology.

MSI Goes VIA KT880 Based Mainboard

AMD’s 64-bit chips are available now for high-end and mainstream systems, but the Socket A platform for Advanced Micro Devices’ 32-bit chips is still alive and kicking. Microstar International has proved this fact by adding MSI KT880 Delta – a yet another mainboard for AMD Athlon XP chips – into the lineup, now powered by VIA KT880 core-logic.

Western Digital’s WD740GD with RAID-50

The testlabs at GamePC has evaluated the highly-anticipated Western Digital WD740GD in RAID-50 setup. The 74MB Raptor is absolutely the speediest Serial ATA/150 product ever created, no wonder it is so popular.

Spring 2004 DVD Performance Roundup: More DVD Dual 8X

AnandTech has tested half a dozen DVD burners to determine which burner is, in fact, the best drive before DVD DL hits the market.