Hasta La Gadget!

What’s in a name? Very little if you’re buying computer hardware lately. Back in the day, you could easily compare two CPUs because their names were simply how fast they were — now you’ve got series of processors and graphics cards with naming conventions dreamed up by marketing gurus who don’t know a front side bus from a school bus. NVIDIA had been shooting for something simple with its G, GT, and GTX lines, but it looks like last year’s talk of a re-tooling of its lineup are coming true; all those seemingly straightforward letter prefixes seem set to be dropped in favor of “GeForce” followed by a number. The first to bear this re-branding will be the 40nm, DirectX 10.1 GeForce 210, set to hit the retail channels in October, followed later by the GeForce 230 and GeForce 300. How exactly they all will compare remains to be seen, but we’re going to go ahead and speculate that bigger number probably equals higher cost.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

NVIDIA hopes you’ll be better able to distinguish its products if it renames them all originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA’s world-beating GeForce GTX 260M GPU hasn’t presented itself in too many gaming laptops just yet, but somehow or another it found its way into ASUS’ bargain priced G51VX. Originally showcased back at Computex, this 15.6-inch rig is amongst the cheapest portable gaming machines in its class, packing a 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 1,368 x 768 panel, 320GB (7200RPM) hard drive and a 1GB GeForce GTX 260M handling the graphical duties. The benchmarking gurus over at HotHardware sat this here machine down for a stern talking to, and while they could’ve stood for the resolution to be a bit higher and the battery life (1.75 hours) to be a tad longer, the actual performance was top shelf. Put simply, it was deemed a “well balanced machine that’s a winner at this price point,” offering up a far nicer GPU than any other competitors in the $1,000 range. Tap that read link for a look at the full review — we get the feeling you’ll like what you see.

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS’ well-rounded G51 gaming laptop reviewed, lauded originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Momma always said you had to pay to play, and it looks like those Europeans won’t be the only ones coughing up dearly for the pleasure of having NVIDIA’s Ion platform shoved within Samsung’s forthcoming N510 netbook. According to the fine folks over at Liliputing, a Samsung rep has confirmed to them that said machine will begin shipping to US soil starting in September (far later than the “July” date we heard earlier in the year), bringing with it a sizable 11.6-inch display, HDMI output, GeForce 9400M GPU, Atom processor and the ability to handle high-def and Blu-ray content. Trouble is, all that multimedia prowess will demand a stiff premium, and by “stiff,” we mean “$599.” So, is anyone actually planning on laying down six bills for a netbook, or did you just convince yourself that a thin-and-light is the way to go?

Filed under: Laptops

Ion-equipped Samsung N510 netbook shipping stateside next month originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you thought MSI‘s obsession with motherboard implants was over after it unveiled Winki to a nearly nonexistent amount of fanfare, think again. The company has just taken the wraps off its latest mobo addition, the OC Genie. In essence, this is the one-touch overclock button that laptop owners have long enjoyed, but for desktops. Right now, the OC Genie is custom built for the company’s own P55 motherboard, though it insists that all sorts of mainboards will be supported in due time. If you’re curious about the details, you’ll have to remain that way for now; all we’re told is that activating the module automatically pushes your system to a safe brink within a second, giving even the newbies in attendance the ability to squeeze more from their current rig. In related news, MSI also added yet another model to its growing Classic laptop series, the 17.3-inch CX700, which gets powered by a Core 2 Duo processor, ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD4330 GPU and 4GB of RAM.

[Via HotHardware]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

MSI takes the pain, fun out of overclocking with OC Genie originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just a few short weeks after eMachines outed its EL1300 line of SFF PCs, the company is hitting us up again with a new trio of full-size desktops. The ET1300-02, ET1810-01 and ET1810-03 are all encased within a luminous white mini-tower and ship with a matching LCD monitor, speakers and a keyboard. As for specs, the $449.99 ET1300-02 checks in with an AMD Athlon X2 4850e (2.5GHz) CPU, Vista Home Premium, NVIDIA’s GeForce G100 (512MB), 3GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB hard drive, 18x SuperMulti DVD burner, multicard reader, HDMI / DVI / VGA outputs and an 18-inch E182H display. The $369.99 ET1810-03 steps to a 2.2GHz Pentium E2210 CPU, GeForce 7500 integrated graphics and just a single VGA port, while the $299.99 ET1810-01 cranks it down to a 1.6GHz Celeron 420 and 2GB of DDR2 RAM. The trio should be filtering out to respected retailers as we speak.

Filed under: Desktops

eMachines intros ET1300-02, ET1810-01 and ET1810-03 desktop PCs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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