Hasta La Gadget!

At only $195, it’s hard to deny that AMD’s new Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition desktop chip is a bargain. Its four cores hum along at 3.7GHz, the fastest base clock speed of any consumer CPU, and the unlocked multiplier should make it trivial for overclockers to push this beast to 4GHz and beyond. The 980 slides right into the same price point as the previous champ, the Phenom II X4 975, and knocks a few bucks off the former clock-frequency king. All of this seems like great news for AMD fans. Of course, if you’re starting from scratch and not just looking to upgrade an aging AM3 rig, keep in mind that only $30 more scores you the mid-range Core i5-2500K that consistently outperforms the 980, consumes less power, and also has an unlocked multiplier. Guess there’s always the graphics market if you care to see AMD being competitive. For the nitty-gritty on how its latest central processing unit stacks up, see the source links.

AMD’s Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition wears the gigahertz crown originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 18:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not going so far as to expand support as far as AMD has with its CrossFireX multi-GPU technology, but NVIDIA has now at least taken one step in that direction. The company announced today that it’s finally bringing SLI support to AMD platforms — specifically, upcoming motherboards based on AMD’s 990FX, 990X and 970 chipsets. Those will be offered by ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, and MSI initially, with additional manufacturers said to be coming on board “shortly.” Hit up the source link below for NVIDIA’s complete statement on the matter — in which it also just so happens to point out that 93 percent of all multi-GPU systems in use today use SLI, according to Steam statistics.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

NVIDIA brings SLI support to AMD 990FX, 990X and 970 chipsets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How’s this for unexpected: you can now pop over to Walmart.com and build yourself a custom gaming rig from iBuyPower. Systems start at $599 (though they’re currently on sale for $578), come in a choice of five different cases and can be equipped with up to 8GB of RAM and a 2TB hard drive. Both Intel and AMD fans will find CPUs to make them happy, including Core i5 and i7 K-series chips, which have unlocked multipliers for all you thrift-happy overclockers out there. You can also choose from nine different AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards, all the way up to a 1.5GB GeForce GTX480. You won’t find seriously heavy-duty hardware like Extreme Edition processors or three-way SLI setups, but you can pick up a pair of $3 flipflops to wear while you lounge around playing Portal 2.

[Thanks, Mark]

Continue reading Walmart offers custom gaming PCs from iBuyPower, tube socks still only L or XL

Walmart offers custom gaming PCs from iBuyPower, tube socks still only L or XL originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since we first peeked the new Sandy Bridge-equipped Dell Precision M4600 and M6600 back in February we haven’t heard much about these mobile workstations. We still don’t have prices or a release date, but a leaked manual has finally delivered some specs — and CAD enthusiasts won’t be disappointed. Both the 15.6-inch M4600 and the 17-inch M6600 can be configured with up to a Core i7 Quad Extreme 2920XM and 32GB of RAM. The smaller, 6.3-pound M4600 comes standard with a 1GB AMD FirePro M5950 and can be upgraded to an NVIDIA Quadro 2000M with 2GB. The more beastly 7.5-pound M6600 starts with a 2GB FirePro M8900 and has options ranging all the way up to a 4GB Quadro 5010M. Both machines also come packing two USB 3.0 ports, a pair of USB 2.0 connectors, an eSATA jack, and an IEEE 1394 port, giving you plenty of room to plug in all the external drives, cameras, scientific instruments, and cat-shaped mouse cozies your little heart desires.

[Thanks, Wolf]

Dell Precision M4600 and M6600 specs spotted in leaked manual originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Graphics card companies don’t live and die by the enthusiast market alone. That may be where the glory is, but it’s the budget cards that really bring in the bacon. For the entry level, AMD just unleashed a trio of sub-$100 cards, the Radeon HD 6670, 6570, and 6450. How do they perform? Well, let’s just say you get what you pay for. Reaction from reviewers has been one of mild indifference. Depending on manufacturer, fan noise does appear to be an issue, possibly precluding the cards from being a viable HTPC choice. Otherwise, even the lowly, $55 6450 is a worthy upgrade over an integrated graphics chip or a two-year-old discrete card, but it can’t match the performance of NVIDIA’s GT 430, which can be had for only a few dollars more. Consensus was that, with prices of the older 5000 series being slashed, purchasers can get more bang for their GPU buck by sticking with last generation cards (like the Radeon HD 5750) if they’re looking for pure gaming prowess. That said, the GDDR5 flavors of the 6670 provide perfectly playable performance on most modern games (it averaged 45 FPS in Call of Duty: Black Ops) for just $99 (the 6570 runs about $79). Just beware those models shipping with GDDR3. Benchmarks galore below.

Read – Hexus
Read – techPowerUp 6450
Read – techPowerUp 6670
Read – Guru3D
Read – Tech Report
Read – Tom’s Hardware 6670 and 6570
Read – Tom’s Hardware 6450
Read – TweakTown
Read – AnandTech
Read – HotHardware

AMD elevates the low-end with trio of sub-$100 cards: Radeon HD 6670, 6570, and 6450 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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