Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve got to hand it to ’em — these guys aren’t ashamed to be clearing out excess inventory, and honestly, we’re still fond of the choice. Sure, HD DVD may be defunct, but what’s the harm in having the capability in your HTPC should an old friend pop over with a disc to watch? All that aside, Kinetic UK’s trio of media center PCs are now shipping after being introduced initially in March, with Blu-ray / HD DVD compatibility, up to 6TB of storage space, Core 2 Duo / Core 2 Quad / Core i7 processor choices and a healthy array of CTO options elsewhere. As for prices, you’re looking at starting tags of £849.00 ($1,351) for the Mini HD:Hub, £1449.00 ($2,306) for the Home HD:Hub and £1569.00 ($2,497) for the flagship X HD:Hub.

Filed under: Desktops, Media PCs

Kinetic’s HD:Hub HTPC now shipping, HD DVD still a selectable option originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 May 2009 16:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See that, Shuttle? Yeah, that’s your worst nightmare. iBUYPOWER has just shocked the small form factor (SFF) world with a new rig that’s potent enough to act as your standalone gaming machine. Equipped with a menacing look, a carry handle and room for two full-sized dual slot video cards, the aptly titled LAN Warrior caters to no one outside of the enthusiast niche. For the crowd willing to shell out for the latest and greatest, they’ll find a Core i7 CPU (920, 940 and 965 Extreme available, up to five ventilation fans, an optional liquid cooling system, ASUS’ Rampage II Gene X58 motherboard, up to 12GB of DDR3 memory, twin GeForce GTX 295 / Radeon 4870 x2 GPUs, four internal 3.5-inch bays, up to 6TB of HDD space, up to two Blu-ray writers, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi and a planet-killing 1000-watt power supply. Amazingly, the starting tag on this one is just $999, and it’s available now from the outfit’s website. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading iBUYPOWER’s Core i7-powered LAN Warrior makes other SFF rigs weep

Filed under: Desktops, Media PCs

iBUYPOWER’s Core i7-powered LAN Warrior makes other SFF rigs weep originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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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We’re not sure if Clevo has had to deal with trade show thievery in the past, but its Core i7-equipped D900F was locked down tight at CeBIT. Nevertheless, we stopped by — camera in hand — to have a look, and what we saw was something we’d never, ever want on our laps for more than 120 seconds. We also saw a ridiculously potent LAN party rig, so we suppose there’s some truth to that “eye of the beholder” thing our parents keep mentioning. All the big pics are just below, but you already knew that, didn’t you?

Continue reading Core i7-packin’ Clevo D900F gaming laptop hands-off

Filed under: Laptops

Core i7-packin’ Clevo D900F gaming laptop hands-off originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lots of Apple rumors today following the weekend whispers of a March 24 desktop hardware event, and they fall neatly along the plausibility spectrum:

• First up, we’d say a bump of the Mac Pro to Intel’s upcoming Nehalem-EP Xeon processors is looking quite likely — famed OS X hacker netkas was poking around in a test build of OS X 10.5.7 and found support files for i7 chips lurking about, as well as drivers for ATI’s Radeon 4000-series GPUs. If you’re making a chart, this one’s right up there with an NVIDIA-powered iMac refresh — it’s a pretty obvious move.
• Second, new entries for the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule have popped up in the FCC, and while the listed dimensions are exactly the same as the current editions, there are no model numbers and something internal has to have changed enough to raise ol’ Sammy’s brows. That could be as simple as a new radio hardware supplier or bigger drives, but if we were placing bets, we’d say both units are getting updated for simultaneous 5GHz and 2.4GHz operation — Apple’s really high on 5GHz for laptops and Apple TV, but the iPhone and iPod touch are 2.4GHz-only. Let’s call this one even odds, shall we?
• Lastly, a new picture of that improbable five USB port Mac mini has surfaced, this time purporting to show the outside of the box. Considering the Photoshop wars the last image of this thing set off, we’d say this is the least likely candidate for a Philly Schills reveal, but then again, Apple’s been pretty leaky lately.

That’s everything we know — anyone else have something to share with the group?

Read – Ars Technica on the Mac Pro
Read – New Airport Extreme FCC listing
Read – New Time Capsule FCC listing
Read – One More Thing Mac mini image [Via TUAW]

Filed under: Desktops, Wireless

Apple rumor Monday: Nehalem Mac Pro, new Airport Extreme and Time Capsule in FCC, Mac mini box originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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