Hasta La Gadget!

The Ultrabook concept (ultrathin but powerful laptop) was introduced by Intel in 2011, and the first MacBook Air with default solid state storage came out in 2010. Since then, almost every major computer producer has come out with a thin and fast laptop sporting speedy storage, quick wake times, and a small footprint. For the most part, these computers were high-end devices: they were fast, and they were expensive.

Enter the Lenovo U310, a seemingly perfect laptop for the back-to-school set that needs something light for Facebook and Word, but doesn’t see the need to spend over $1000 on a higher-end laptop. Sure, the base configuration doesn’t have a SSD, and yeah, it’s bulk more closely resembles the MacBook Pro than its svelte cousin the Air. On the other hand, it’s packing Intel’s new Core i5 processor. But does Lenovo’s U310 offer enough value to warrant a recommendation? Let’s take a look… (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Macbook Pro Review, with Retina Display, Dell XPS 13 Review,

The Khronos group has released the specifications for OpenGL 4.3, the graphics API (Application Programming Interface) for personal computers and workstations. The variant for mobile devices is called OpenGL ES and just got bumped to 3.0. With this latest release, OpenGL catches up to features that were only available to DirectX 11, namely Compute Shaders.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: OpenGL 4.1 graphics library released, Open GL ES 3.0 specifications released [SIGGRAPH],

The Monarch IN01 is another newly launched desktop PC from Dospara that sports a 3.40GHz Intel Core i7-3770 processor, an Intel Z77 Express Chipset, a GeForce GTX 680 2GB graphics card, an 8GB DDR3 RAM, a 1TB hard drive, a DVD Super Multi Drive and runs on Windows 7 Home Premium OS. The Monarch IN01 will set you back 149,980 Yen (about $1,920). [Product Page]

Ten-core, 2.4GHz Xeons? Pshaw. IBM is used to the kind of clock speeds and brute force power that lead to Europe-dominating supercomputers. Big Blue has no intentions of letting its guard down when it unveils its next generation processors at the upcoming Hot Chips conference: the company is teasing that the “zNext” chip at the heart of a future System z mainframe will ramp up to 5.5GHz — that’s faster than the still-speedy 5.2GHz z196 that has led IBM’s pack since 2010. For those who don’t need quite that big a sledgehammer, the technology veteran is hinting that its upcoming Power7+ processors will be up to 20 percent faster than the long-serving Power7, whose current 4.14GHz peak clock rate may seem quaint. We’ll know just how much those extra cycles mean when IBM takes to the conference podium on August 29th, but it’s safe to say that our databases and large-scale simulations won’t know what hit them.

Filed under: Desktops

IBM pushing System z, Power7+ chips as high as 5.5GHz, mainframes get mightier originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Aug 2012 02:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer has rolled out the Predator AG5920 gaming desktop in Japan. Powered by a fast 3.5GHz Intel Core i7-3770K “Ivy Bridge” quad-core processor, the computer features a 2GB nVidia GeForce GTX 670 graphics card, a combination of a 128GB SSD and a 1TB 7,200RPM hard disk drive, up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM and a Blu-ray drive. The Acer Predator AG5920 runs on the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. Folks in Japan are able to buy the Acer Predator AG5920 for $2,180. [Acer]