Hasta La Gadget!

AMD has always been one to play the pricing card in its never-ending tussle with Intel, but we get the feeling this introduction may pack more of a punch than any before it. It’s a simple concept — the $99 quad-core CPU — and given just how in love we Americans are with value menus, you can bet new PC builders will at least give the new Athlon II X4 620 ($99) and 630 ($122) a look. Reviews around the web essentially came to the same conclusion: it’s not the fastest quad-core chip around, and the lack of L3 certainly doesn’t make it the most attractive, but the 620 somehow manages to compete with all of the processors in its price range while being the cheapest. The “cut-down Phenom II,” as HotHardware calls it, suffers a bit on the gaming side due to the L3 removal, but in general scenarios it was plenty potent. Hit the links below if you feel like digging in way, way deeper.

Read – HotHardware
Read – TechSpot
Read – MaximumPC
Read – PC Perspective
Read – TweakTown
Read – PC Pro
Read – AMD Zone

Filed under: Desktops

AMD pops out sub-$100 quad-core Athlon II X4 CPU: review roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you run a brick-and-mortar store that primarily sells media? Yeah? Then lean in real close, we’ve got a little trend that you may have overlooked. The physical media you carry — be it films, music, or games — is going digital and moving on-line for direct-to-consumer downloads. Still, Dutch gaming-house Nedgame has a statement on its website saying it will not be selling the UMD-less PSP Go. It lists six reasons framed in a way that makes them sound like they’re fighting for the rights of the consumer. However, as a seller of gaming media that boasts two new store openings on its home page, the primary beef likely stems from the shop’s inability to sell physical media to the download-only PSP Go. Maybe a search on the tag Blockbuster could help with expansion planning?

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

PSP Go refused by game retailer as Blockbuster fiddles originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hard to believe this is Seagate’s first consumer NAS offering (keyword being “consumer“), but sure enough, the FreeAgent DockStar is the company’s first major effort to get its own line of FreeAgent Go hard drives onto your network. Without getting into too much detail, this simple dock is essentially a Pogoplug with a built-in cradle for one’s FreeAgent Go USB (read: not FireWire) HDD. Thankfully, a trifecta of USB 2.0 sockets are littered about the edges, ensuring that at least three standard USB drives can also be connected and accessed over the web. We’ve yet to have a chance to put this bugger through its paces, but since we know all about the underlying technology, you can probably learn everything you need to know from our Pogoplug review. For those who’d rather opt for a Seagate’d version of an already available product, this DockStar is shipping today for $99.99. Oh, and we should mention that it comes with a year of the Pogoplug service, but after that, you’ll be shelling out $29.99 per year for unlimited sharing and remote access.

In related news, Seagate is also introducing three new capacities for its FreeAgent Go family. In addition to the 250GB, 320GB, 500GB and 640GB versions already out there, the range will now include a 750GB, 880GB and 1TB version. Too bad no pricing or release details are available on those, but we’ll be keeping an eye out.

Continue reading Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar: hands-on

Filed under: Storage, Networking

Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar: hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seagate's DockStar can support up to four USB drives

(Credit: Seagate)

Do you want to turn a USB hard drive into a cheap, easy network attached storage device? Seagate’s DockStar is designed to let you do just that. Like the preceding Dock+ model, the DockStar can host …

ARM‘s doing some chest thumping today by revealing a 2GHz clock speed on its dual-core Cortex-A9 processor. The move is meant to remind manufacturers that ARM can scale beyond its traditional smartphone strong-hold and into netbook territories currently dominated by Intel. ARM’s even handing out benchmarks showing the Cortex A9 out performing Intel’s single-core 1.6GHz Atom N270 — a processor launched back in 2008. Of course, Intel already ships a dual-core Atom 330 processor with its low-power Pineview processor set to launch on the near-horizon. It’s also worth remembering that Windows 7 won’t run on ARM so future Cortex A9 smartbooks will have to settle for Windows CE, Android, or perhaps, Google’s Chrome OS if you ask politely. ARM is licensing its Cortex A9 speed- and power-optimized technology today with delivery in the fourth quarter of 2009.

[Via PC World, thanks Ian]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops

ARM’s Cortex-A9 beats Atom N270: too bad it’s not 2008 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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