Hasta La Gadget!

IBuyPower’s been on a pretty good roll of late with these new gaming desktops, and it’s keeping things interesting with its latest two. Rather than just shoving the latest processors from AMD and Intel into the Gamer Fire 640 and Gamer Paladin F830 and calling it a day, it has thrown in a 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster LCD and NVIDIA’s GeForce 3D Vision system with each rig. As for the Gamer Fire 640 specifically, it comes loaded with an AMD Phenom II X3 720 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, a GeForce 9800GTX+ (512MB), dual-layer DVD writer and Vista Home Premium 64-bit. The Paladin gets loaded with a Core i7 920, 6GB of memory, a Blu-ray drive and a GeForce GTX 260 GPU. Detailed specs (along with the full release) are just past the break, but if you’re scouting base prices, they sit at $1,349 and $1,999 in order of mention.

Continue reading IBuyPower trots out GeForce 3D Vision-equipped desktops

Filed under: Desktops, Displays

IBuyPower trots out GeForce 3D Vision-equipped desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, we already heard that Dell’s Phenom II-equipped XPS 625 was a solid value, but what does that really mean? The testing fiends over at HotHardware sought to find out, and after putting this gaming beast through more tests than it ever wanted to endure, they mirrored most of the earlier (positive) sentiments. In fact, it was found to boast one of the best price-to-performance ratios out there, and the “minimalist” software installation definitely earned brownie points in our book. One thing that bothered critics, however, was the excessive amount of noise. We too have noticed that Dell’s ginormous XPS towers — which, by the way, reviewers also found to be unnecessarily heavy and unwieldy — can emit some serious decibels under heavy loads, but you’d think the engineers in Round Rock would’ve figured out a solution by now. Still, those quirks are probably small hassles to deal with given the savings compared to similar rigs, but we’d highly recommend digging into the read link just to be sure.

Filed under: Desktops

Dell’s Phenom II-equipped XPS 625 benchmarked to the hilt originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 vs. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860

Don’t get too comfy, NVIDIA. AMD showed up today with mobile video cards of its own, the new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and HD 4830. The cards are working off of AMD’s new 40nm process, with DirectX 10.1 support, dual DisplayPort out and 1080p acceleration claims galore (or 2560 x 1600, if that’s your thing). The 4860 sets itself apart with GDDR5 memory, and both cards do ATI PowerPlay, ATI PowerXpress and ATI Switchable Graphics for power saving and maximum buzzwordage. The cards will be first available in ASUS laptops in Q2 of this year.

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

AMD’s new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and HD 4830 chew pixels with 40nm teeth originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Or, you know, maybe the headline should read: “AMD looking to ship 32nm chips behind Intel. Rather than staying one step ahead of its fiercest rival, it sounds like Advanced Micro Devices is perfectly content with being a few months behind. Based on words from CEO Dirk Meyer, the company is hoping to “ramp up” production of 32 nanometer processors — which Intel has already demonstrated — in the middle of next year, with volume production hopefully starting in Q4. Of course, these chips will be among the first not actually built by AMD; instead, they’ll be fabricated by the newly spun Foundry Company, so we suppose the lag is little easier to understand. Oh, and there’s also the fact that “AMD isn’t in a race with Intel on all technologies,” though the business bone inside of us thinks it should be.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

AMD looking to ship 32nm chips in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After having to delay the final vote earlier this month due to a lack of participation (d’oh!), AMD has dotted the final ‘i’ in its attempt to spin off semiconductor manufacturing. Said company, along with the Advanced Technology Investment Company, have now secured the final approval necessary to create The Foundry Company. Stockholder approval was the only remaining hurdle to be jumped, and the joint venture transaction is expected to fully close by March 2nd of this year. By the numbers, AMD stockholders approved a proposal to issue 58 million shares of its common stock along with warrants to purchase 35 million shares of its common stock and 35 million shares of the company’s common stock upon exercise of those warrants to an affiliate of the Mubadala Development Company PJSC (perplexing, we know). Now, let’s see if AMD can keep up with Intel’s own $7 billion investment.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

AMD nets final approval to create The Foundry Company originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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