Laptops & Desktops

March 21st, 2010

Latest Commodore 64 incarnation hopes what's old is new again

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 5:22 pm

Categories: Desktops, PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Game, PC, Intel Core 2 Duo, Computer, Atari Inc., Keyboards, Productivity, Desktops, Hardware, Peripherals

My first computer being an Atari 800, I don’t have the first-hand experience of having owned a Commodore 64, but it’s remembered a lot more ardently than those early Atari computers. In fact, the Commodore name is so beloved that it’s continually being resurrected, including an attempt to make it the moniker for a line of gaming desktops.

The latest licensing of the Commodore name is for an updated version of its legendary 64 computer, which takes the form of an all-in-one system packed into a keyboard form factor. It uses Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad processors and can handle up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM and 2TB of storage. Needless to say, there’s no room for a discrete graphics card, but the PC does at least come with a built-in DVD burner. Despite the last-generation components, the Commodore offers an interesting twist: It comes with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, and you can also get it configured with your choice of Windows 7. The new company, Commodore USA, also says you can load Apple OS X on the machine; theoretically lots of PCs can handle OS X, but you don’t see Dell mentioning it on its configuration page.

No prices are currently available on its Web site, which will have the Commodore on sale starting June 1. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any real connection between the new PC and its vintage namesake—Commodore Gaming, which sold the gaming computers before changing course and offering classic Commodore games for the iPhone and Wii, at least offered stick-on graphics for their desktops that included Commodore-related themes and also installed a C64 emulator on them. But beyond the semi-resemblance between the keyboard PCs, there’s doesn’t seem to be any information available that should inspire retro-lust in those of you who spent your formative years under the Commodore’s spell.

[Via PC World]

March 18th, 2010

iBuyPower joins Intel Core i7-980X gaming desktop fray, launches handful of six-core PCs

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 4:07 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Game, PC, Nvidia GeForce, ATI Technologies Inc., Intel Core Microarchitecture, Desktops, Hardware, Sean Portnoy

Another desktop vendor has jumped aboard the six-core gaming desktop bandwagon, as iBuyPower has released four new systems featuring the new Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition processor.

The cheapest of the six-core Paladin line at $2,159, the Gamer Paladin F890, comes with 6GB of DDR3 RAM, while the other three pack twice as much RAM. The F890 also comes with a 1TB hard drive and ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card. For $180 more, the Paladin F950 swaps ATI for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 card and also includes a Blu-ray reader/DVD-writer combo drive.

There’s a big step-up in cost to the $3,189 Paladin F970, thanks to the inclusion of the Radeon HD 5870 card as well as an 80GB Intel X25-M solid state drive and Windows 7 Ultimate instead of Home Premium. Still have more money to burn? The Paladin XLC V3 will cost you $4,409, which gets you a 2TB hard drive (and the Intel SSD), a pair of GeForce GTX 285 in SLI configuration, and iBuyPower’s Power Drive Overclocking Service. All four desktops come with liquid cooling as a standard feature.

March 16th, 2010

Maingear, Digital Storm, CyberPower and Velocity Micro announce i7-980X six-core desktops

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 7:53 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Desktop, Hard Drive, Velocity, Cyberpower, ATI Technologies Inc., RAM, Graphics, 1TB, Memory, Semiconductors

The deluge of systems offering i7-980X CPUs has begun, with several gaming PC vendors adding the new Intel six-core processor to their lineups. That includes Maingear, which is selling its Shift performance desktop (pictured) for $3,290 with the first Gulftown CPU. Key specs at that price are 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 750GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card, and complimentary factory overclocking. You also get USB 3.0 and SATA 6GBps support via the Asus motherboard.

For even bigger spenders, Digital Storm is offering its BlackOPS gaming desktop with the i7-980X for a cool $5,642. Along with the new Extreme Edition processor, you get some features similar to the Shift—6GB RAM, 500GB hard drive—but the graphics firepower gets pumped up with a pair of ATI Radeon HD 5970 in CrossFireX configuration. You also get a free overclock to 3.9GHz from the factory-set 3.33GHz clock speed and liquid cooling for the CPU. If you want maximum overclocking without doing it yourself, you can get to 4.4GHz with a $248 upgrade. At least Digital Storm is currently offering a $450 instant rebate to take some of the fiscal pain away.

CyberPower PC and Velocity Micro are putting the new CPU into more than one of their desktop lines to give buyers a bit more choice. From its own Web site, Velocity Micro offers the Raptor Z90 starting at $3,354 with the i7-980X, along with 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 1TB hard drive, and an ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card, which is an older board. You can graduate to a Raptor Signature Edition for $4,999, which provides the same amount of RAM, but adds another 1TB drive (in a RAID 1 configuration) and upgrades the graphics to a Radeon HD 5870. You also get liquid cooling and even a Razer gaming keyboard and gaming mouse. TigerDirect will sell two more Velocity Micro options: the $3,950 Raptor Lx 665 (12GB RAM, pair of 1TB drives, Radeon HD 5870, Blu-ray/DVD burner combo) and the $4,691.99 Raptor Lx775 (12GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, two 64GB SSD drives, dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 card, Blu-ray/DVD burner combo).

Finally, CyberPower has three desktop lines that will offer the i7-980X. The Black Mamba does the Raptor Lx775 better for about $400 less, not only coming with 12GB RAM, liquid cooling, and a pair of 64GB SSDs, but also a 2TB hard drive and twin Radeon HD 5870s in CrossFireX configuration. For $3,775 there’s the Black Pearl, which sports similar specs as the Black Mamba but has a 1TB hard drive and a pair of 300GB WD Raptor hard drives for storage. Or you can go a different direction with the Gamer Xtreme 3D 3000. While it only comes with 6GB of RAM, it has a 1.5TB hard drive and the twin Raptor drives, and swaps out ATI for two Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 graphics cards in SLI configuration. For the $3,945 base price, CyberPower also throws in a 22-inch Samsung 3D LCD and a pair of Nvidia 3D glasses to make use of Nvidia’s GeForce 3D Vision technology.

No doubt more builders will be announcing their own i7-980X systems in the coming days, but it looks like we’ve already made a pretty good start.

March 16th, 2010

Eurocom jams i7-980X six-core desktop processor into 17-inch D900F Panther laptop

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 6:15 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Processor, Laptop Computer, Eurocom, Desktops, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Sean Portnoy

Desktop makers are all getting into the act with freshly updated systems that feature the new Intel i7-980X Extreme Edition six-core CPU, but so is a boutique laptop builder as well.

Eurocom is one of a few vendors that squeezes desktop processors into hot and heavy notebooks whose heft and lap-scorching capabilities result in these desktop replacements mostly staying on the desktop. The company now offers the fastest desktop CPU ever as an option for its D900F Panther laptop workstation, which can frankly be configured as well as most desktops. Of course, that’s not true in its base configuration—6GB of DDR3 RAM, 250GB hard drive, Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M graphics card, but no OS installed. Add the i7-980X to that mix and it costs a cool $3,675 before you throw in an extra $100 for Windows 7.

This being a workstation, you can get the system with an Nvidia Quadro FX 2800M or 3800M graphics card instead of the gaming card. And there is room for four hard drives and up to 12GB of RAM. As expected the rig weighs in at a tank-like 8.8 pounds and battery life that might be measured in minutes instead of hours. That could be just as well, since the laptop may have burned a hole in your jeans by that point.

[Via HotHardware]

March 16th, 2010

HP offers new Intel i7-980X six-core processor in HPE-180t desktop for under $2,000

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 4:16 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Desktops, Processors, Hardware, Semiconductors, Components, Sean Portnoy

Today was the day that Intel PC partners could officially announce their support for the new i7-980X Extreme Edition six-core processor, and several companies have updated their product offerings, which will hopefully cover in the next few posts. But let’s start with the biggest desktop company with a new offering: HP has added the CPU as an option for its Pavilion Elite HPE-180t series.

While the i7-980X will be in gaming rigs that will cost thousands and thousands of dollars, this HP desktop may be the one you want if you’re trying to stick a little bit to a budget. Though it’s still priced well beyond the cost of 90 percent of desktops sold, you can get the HPE-180t with the extreme processor for “just” $1,909.99. The rest of the specs for the configuration at that price aren’t as extreme, but they’re adequate if you’re looking for those processing cores for video editing rather than Crysis playing: 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 640GB hard drive, and ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics card. Of course, you can upgrade—up to 24GB of RAM, 2TB hard drive, and Nvidia Geforce GTX 260—but then you’re looking at pricing that rivals those from boutique builders.

Speaking of which, stay tuned for some of their offerings, which definitely won’t cost under two grand.

March 13th, 2010

Origin PC offers Core i7-980X Extreme CPU overclocked to 4.3GHz for its gaming desktops

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 5:20 am

Categories: Desktops, PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Game, PC, CPU, Desktops, Processors, Hardware, Semiconductors, Components, Sean Portnoy

We blogged over the last 36 hours or so (here and here) about Intel introducing its latest fastest desktop processor ever: the Core i7-980X Extreme Edition. Though some media outlets tested systems from Falcon Northwest and Maingear, neither of them has added the CPU to their online configurators. The honor of being first goes to relative newcomer Origin PC, which has already updated its site to provide the option for its Genesis gaming desktop.

The upgrade will pack on another $895 to the price, but who’s satisfied with just the factory settings? For an additional $149, Origin will overclock the CPU to 4.3GHz from Intel’s 3.33GHz clock speed. You’ll still have to wait until the beginning of April to receive your system, but you’ll have a few weeks to salivate over what may be the fastest desktop commercially available. By that time, some Web tech site will have posted the new Genesis’ benchmarks, letting you know what exactly an overclocked i7-980X can do.

[Via HotHardware]

March 12th, 2010

More details on Intel's six-core Gulftown chip

Posted by John Morris @ 4:18 am

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Desktop, Intel Corp., Chip, Desktop Processor, Core, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, John Morris

The performance gulf between Intel and AMD (pun intended) just got a little bit bigger.

At a conference for game developers this week, Intel announced its first six-core desktop processor, the Core i7- 980X Extreme Edition (my colleague, Sean Portnoy, wrote about this earlier). Intel discussed the processor–better-known by its code-name Gulftown–at the ISSCC a chip conference in February, but details such as the name, frequency, pricing and availability were previously not confirmed.

The Core i7- 980X Extreme Edition operates at 3.33GHz, supports 12 simultaneous threads (two per core) and has 12MB of cache. By comparison, the current Extreme Edition processor, the Core i7-975, runs at the same clock speed, but it has four cores (eight threads) and 8MB of Level 3 cache. Because Intel manufactures the Core i7- 980X with the 32nm Westmere process, the chip is about the same size as the 45nm quad-core Core i7-975 and draws about the same maximum power.

It’s also the same price as its predecessor–a whopping $999 list. Clearly this is a high-end processor intended for a small number of enthusiasts willing to pay a premium for the best possible performance. The Core i7- 980X Extreme Edition will be available in high-end gaming and entertainment desktops (there’s speculation it could show up as an option in a refreshed Mac Pro). It will also be sold as a boxed upgrade since it uses the same socket (LGA 1366) as the current Core i7 processors found on high-end motherboards based on Intel’s X58 Express chipset, though it does require a BIOS update beforehand. Newegg currently sells the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition for $970.

CNET’s Rich Brown has posted a review of the Falcon Northwest Mach V, one of the first systems available with the Core i7-980X. Computer Shopper and PC Magazine also reviewed this gaming desktop. Several hardware enthusiast sites have taken an in-depth look at the processor itself (Engadget links to many of them here). With applications that can take advantage of all of these cores and threads, the performance is very good–as much as 50 percent faster than the Core i7-975–making it the ultimate desktop processor for workloads such as video encoding or complex Excel spreadsheets. The catch is that many consumer applications don’t really take advantage of all these cores and threads. And even gamers will generally get more benefit from a fast dual- or quad-core CPU paired with more powerful GPUs, which is why the desktop processor is for only a select audience.

The case for these many-core CPUs is more straightforward with servers. Intel also plans to sell a server version, which is known as Westmere-EP but will be branded the Xeon 5600 series. By the end of this month, it is scheduled to release the eight-core Nehalem-EX as well. AMD already sells a six-core server processor, the Opteron 2400 series, and it recently began shipping a small number of its eight- and 12-core Opteron 6100s, also known as Magny-Cours. Later this year, it will release a desktop version branded logically enough as the Phenom II X6 (code-named Thuban). This will be paired with AMD’s just-announced 890GX, a high-end chipset that supports new technologies such as SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0, on high-end desktops.

March 11th, 2010

Intel Core i7-980X six-core "Gulftown" CPU gets reviewed, benchmarked. Verdict: Fastest desktop processor ever.

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 6:16 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Desktop, CPU, Intel Core Microarchitecture, Processors, Games, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Personal Technology, Sean Portnoy

Depending on your view, PC gaming is dead or is the only way to game. Clearly, Intel is of the latter view, which is why the company chose to preview its new “Extreme Edition” CPU at the Game Developers Conference—the Core i7-980X, the first desktop processor to feature six computing cores. At the same time, it allowed seemingly every tech site under the sun to put the new chip through the usual benchmarks, and they came up with a very “surprising” conclusion: It’s the fastest consumer-based CPU ever. (Check out HotHardware for one report.)

There are, of course, the usual caveats. For applications that only make use of one or two cores, the Core i7-980X’s horsepower is largely untapped, whereas for things like video encoding, the multiple cores make a noticeable difference. As much as a CPU can aid with 3D gaming, it also appears to provide a sizable boost, especially compared to AMD’s Phenom II X4 quad-core processor. (AMD’s six-core CPU, the Thuban, is due soon, but hasn’t been released widely to the benchmarking community.) But as usual with the Extreme Edition of Intel’s processors, you’ll pay dearly for the performance and bragging rights that come with the Core i7-980X—to the tune of around $1,000.

While the processor hasn’t been made officially available, PC Magazine did manage to score Maingear and Falcon Northwest systems running the new beast, and more desktop builders will announce i7-980X-equipped PCs soon enough. For those of us who can’t spring for a $5,000 system, the wait is on for six-core processors to reach mainstream prices.

March 10th, 2010

New Lian-Li computer case let you turns your PC into a mecha spider

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 6:11 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Leg, PC, Computer, Lian-Li, Productivity, Desktops, Hardware, Sean Portnoy

Antec first turned heads with its Skeleton open-air case, which exposed DIYers components but helped with air cooling and reduced dust bunnies found in a closed chassis. Now premium case builder Lian-Li is going further out with its new PC-T1R, which not only leaves your system’s parts out in the open, but also has four “legs” that let you have a mechanical spider (well, semi-spider) sitting on your desk.

Of course, you’re not building a tricked-out PC with this thing. The PC-T1R can only handle a microATX (mATX) motherboard, and a few other components, along with the power supply. You also get an on/off switch, but unfortunately it only powers your computer, not its legs. Lian-Li says that it will run about 150 euros (about $205), though I wonder how much a skilled hobbyist could put together an erector set version for. Plus, the erector set one could even follow you around from room to room with a motor attached.

[Source and image: Fudzilla]

March 8th, 2010

Walmart has Dell's Inspiron One 19 all-in-one desktop on sale

Posted by Sean Portnoy @ 7:58 pm

Categories: PCs, Peripherals, and Software

Tags: Desktop, Dell Computer Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Dell Inspiron, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Sean Portnoy

Walmart has put Dell’s latest all-in-one PC, the Inspiron One 19, on sale at its locations without much fanfare, apparently causing Engadget to think it’s just been stocked. (Read the comments to see people who’ve already seen the desktop in stores for a few weeks.) A little sleuthing also turns up the system on the Walmart Web site, thought it’s listed as “out of stock” online.

The Inspiron One 19 has previously been available abroad, but hasn’t yet been listed on the U.S. Dell Web site. It’s built around an 18.5-inch LCD screen, though, despite running Windows 7 Home Premium, it doesn’t appear to be a touchscreen. It comes with an Intel Pentium E5400 dual-core processor (at least it’s not an Atom CPU), 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 640GB hard drive, DVD burner, and integrated graphics. One for the minus column is that it only comes with a wired network port and not built-in wireless. Considering this may wind up in a kitchen or bedroom, it’s unlikely that these spaces will have an Ethernet jack available. Then again, for the price—$598—you can’t expect to have everything.