Dell adds dual-core SU1400 CPU, other options to Inspiron 11z

Dell’s 11.6-inch Inspiron 11z just went on sale last month, and already the outfit is opening up the options for those not entirely pleased with the single $399 model. Starting today, a $479 configuration is available to ship with a 250GB HDD and Vista Home Premium (with a Windows 7 upgrade, of course), and if that’s still not enough, prospective customers can soon select their 11z in a variety of colors. We’re talking Alpine White, Ice Blue, Jade Green, New Cherry Red, Passion Purple and Promise Pink, with the latter contributing $5 to breast cancer research. As for optional hardware upgrades, you can slot a dual-core Pentium SU1400 CPU in there alongside 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. As of this very moment, Dell has yet to open up the CTO doors, but we’re guessing an admin is on that as we speak. Right, Dell?

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Dell adds dual-core SU1400 CPU, other options to Inspiron 11z originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft unveils Barrelfish multi-core optimized OS

With current operating systems, as the number of cores increases efficiency decreases. Microsoft Research has just announced an experimental OS, called Barrelfish, that they’re developing in conjunction with ETH Zurich, in the hopes that they’ll learn how to buck that trend — both with current and future hardware. Building upon lessons learned with projects including Midori and Singularity, Barrelfish eschews share memory schemes in favor of message passing and a kind of database that shuttles information between cores. Heady stuff, for sure — but just the kind of thing that sets off our Geek Alarms. If you can’t wait to check this one out for yourself, hit the read link for the first release snapshot, in all its Open Source glory. The rest of us will probably remain content waiting to see how this new-found knowledge will trickle down to Windows 7 users in the future.

[Via DailyTech]

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Microsoft unveils Barrelfish multi-core optimized OS originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo serves up Atom-powered C100 all-in-one desktop for $399

Clearly there’s something special waiting for some product manager who gets all of his / her new kit out the door before the fiscal Q4 ends, as Lenovo has been on a serious tear of late. Hot on the heels of its ThinkPad X200, T400s touch and IdeaPad S12 comes this, another all-in-one desktop that should suit the web surfers and email checkers of the world just fine. Starting at $399 (or $50 less than the similar IdeaCentre C300), this rig is equipped with an 18.5-inch LCD, a two-inch thick chassis, Intel’s Core 230 or Core 330 CPU, a DVD burner, four USB sockets, GMA950 integrated graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB (5400RPM) hard drive and Windows XP running the show. Something tells us these will be flying off the shelves come Christmastime.

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Lenovo serves up Atom-powered C100 all-in-one desktop for $399 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer’s Ion-powered Aspire Revo 3600 packs dual-core Atom 330

Remember that Gateway QX2800 we peeked back in July? Looks like Acer’s finally issuing its own version of the nettop here at IFA with the introduction of the Aspire Revo 3600. Design wise, everything is pretty much the same as on the original AspireRevo, with the major differences coming on the inside. Rather than packing a paltry 1.6GHz Atom 230, Acer has outfitted this bugger with a dual-core Atom 330, NVIDIA’s Ion graphics technology, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, an HDMI socket and VESA mount compatibility. There’s no word on an expected price, release date or OS, but we’re hoping to get our mitts on the unit itself as well as those missing details when Berlin opens its doors to tech lovers across the globe here in just a few hours.

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Acer’s Ion-powered Aspire Revo 3600 packs dual-core Atom 330 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS EeeBox EB1012 teases home theaters with dual-core Atom and Ion graphics

Looks like our dreams of a discrete, low cost home theater PC are about to be realized. ASUS has a new EeeBox PC EB1012 touting a dual-core Atom N330 (just as rumored), NVIDIA MCP7A ION graphics, a 250GB SATA hard disk, 2GB of DDR2-800 memory expandable to 4GB, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, S/PDIF 5.1 audio jack, and HDMI out. As such, this little 222 x 178 x 26.9mm box should handle your hardware accelerated 1080p content just as readily as it does full-screen Flash video from Hulu and beyond — a place where single-core Atom-based Ion nettops fail. It also features an eSATA jack, 4x USB ports, and an SDHC card reader for plugging in more media. No word on price or ship date but we’ll keep an eye out.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

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ASUS EeeBox EB1012 teases home theaters with dual-core Atom and Ion graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM promises dual-core Cortex A9-based smartphones next year

The world’s two most visually engaging smartphones — the iPhone and the Pre — share very similar cores based on ARM’s Cortex A8 architecture, and with the newer, more advanced Cortex A9 in the pipeline, you can’t help but let your mind wander a bit as you envision what twice as much computational power could bring to a handset. The A9 employs more advanced instruction pipelining than its predecessor, but the biggest news has to be the fact that it can pack two or more cores — and ARM fully expects dual-core A9-based phones to hit in 2010. Of course, power consumption is the biggest constraint when it comes to this category of device, and while the company says that peak drain will exceed that on today’s crop of devices, average consumption will actually drop thanks largely to a move from 65nm to 45nm manufacturing processes. Add in 1080p video promised by TI’s next-gen OMAP4 silicon wrapped around an A9 core, and you’ve basically got a home theater in your pocket that’s ready to rock for a few hours on a charge. That and Snoop Dogg, of course.

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ARM promises dual-core Cortex A9-based smartphones next year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New AMD Neo Athlon / Turion chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z

Well, well — what have we here? HP‘s newly unveiled Pavilion dv2z just so happens to have a bit of fresh silicon within, as AMD’s latest Neo chips are front and center in the configuration options. The thin-and-light machine can be ordered with single- or dual-core AMD Athlon Neo and Turion Neo dual-core processors, and if you’re looking for specifics, you’ll find the new 1.6GHz Athlon Neo X2 L335 and 1.6GHz Turion Neo X2 L625. Other specs on the 12.1-incher include a LED-backlit WXGA panel, optional Blu-ray drive, discrete ATI Radeon graphics, up to 500GB of HDD space, a built-in webcam, WiFi, optional WWAN (Verizon, Sprint or AT&T) and a 6-cell battery. It’s up for order right now starting at $599.99, but if you’re looking to leave that aged Neo MV-40 behind, you’ll have to pony up a bit more than that. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading New AMD Neo Athlon / Turion chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z

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New AMD Neo Athlon / Turion chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP Releases Dual Core Almost-Netbook

HP-Pavilion-dv2-Image-HEADERcrop.jpgNeed some serious portable processing power? HP’s not-quite-netbook, the dv2z, is now configurable with dual-core versions of AMD’s not-quite-netbook processors, the Athlon Neo (with 512K of L2 cache) and Turion Neo (with 1 Mb of L2 cache). The super-thin laptop, the single core version of which hardware analyst Cisco Cheng reviewed in April, maintains a claimed 5 hours of battery life despite the dual-core’s battery load.

Other potential options when configuring your machine include an 4 Gb of RAM, an ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 discrete graphics chipset for moderate 3D gaming and smooth video and a built in 3G modem capable of connecting to multiple cell networks. In HP’s recommended configuration, this travel-worthy notebook will cost you $755.

AMD debuts Athlon II X2 250 and Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition CPUs

If you’re AMD, you’ve got to be feeling pretty good right now. Intel’s busy handling a lawsuit bigger than the left half of Russia, you’re finally free of that dreaded manufacturing business and you’ve got a new pair of mainstream CPUs debuting at Computex. The first of the two is the dual-core 45nm Athlon II X2 250, which features a TDP of 65-watts and can whittle power consumption down to 50 percent when handling just “basic tasks.” Then there’s the first-ever dual-core AMD Phenom II, the X2 550 Black Edition. Built from the ground-up for its ‘Dragon’ platform, this here chip also supports OverDrive 3.0 and should provide some higher-end features on a budget. Unfortunately, details beyond that are inexplicably scant, but we’ll be sure to pass on whatever surfaces at the show. Full release is after the break.

Read – HotHardware review
Read – AMDZone review
Read – OverclockersClub review
Read – PC Perspective review
Read – LostCircuits review
Read – BenchmarkReviews review
Read – TechSpot review
Read – X-bit Labs review
Read – Legion Hardware review

Continue reading AMD debuts Athlon II X2 250 and Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition CPUs

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AMD debuts Athlon II X2 250 and Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition CPUs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Averatec debuts 12-inch $699 N2700 ultraportable

If it’s fancy you’re scouting, you needn’t look here. If you’re fine with a classic design, a relatively low price and plenty of oomph to handle everyday tasks, you’ve got your eyes right where they need to be. Averatec‘s latest rig is a 12-inch ultraportable that gets powered by a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T6400 processor, a WXGA panel, 4GB of DDR2-800 RAM, a 250GB SATA hard drive, 8x SuperMulti dual-layer DVD writer, WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, a trio of USB 2.0 ports, FireWire and audio in / out. Furthermore, you’ll find a VGA output, 4-in-1 card reader, GMA X4500HD graphics set, 1.3 megapixel camera and Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. This four pound lappie will set you back $699, and if you’re already sold, we’re happy to inform you that it’s shipping right now.

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Averatec debuts 12-inch $699 N2700 ultraportable originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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