NVIDIA Announces Q1 Fiscal 2009 Profits

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

NVIDIA is living high on the hog and has been for the last several years thanks to ATI/AMD’s combined woes and seeming inability to turn out video cards capable of competing with NVIDIA’s offerings across the range.

NVIDIA has announced its fiscal Q1 2009 earnings report and shows a 37% revenue growth and a 34% net income growth year-over-year. Revenue for Q1 fiscal 2009 was a massive $1.15 billion compared to $844.3 million Q1 fiscal 2008. Read more

Posted on Fri, 9 May 2008 08:41:29 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Acer Adds Business & Value Series LCDs

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Acer announced two new families of LCDs recently called the Business Series and the Value series. The B-series displays range in size from 17 to 24-inch and include several models. All B-series displays have black bezels and a black base. The B-series also uses Acer’s FlxArm technology for height adjustment, tilt and swivel as well as rotation. B-series interface options include VGA and DVI with HDCP support.

The B-series displays have 5ms response times and 2000:1 to 3000:1 dynamic contrast ratios. It seems that other than the FlxArm technology the two series of displays are very similar. The displays are available now at dealers across America. Read more

Posted on Wed, 7 May 2008 08:37:48 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Hitachi Ships 7200RPM TravelStar 320GB HDD

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Hitachi announced today that it is now shipping its TravelStar 7K320 2.5-inch notebook HDD. The drive has 320GB of storage space without sacrificing the faster 7200 RMP rotational speed. Hitachi says that the new drive delivers 60% higher capacity than the drive before it and application performance is improved by 12%.

A version of the drive will also be offered with bulk data encryption as well. The standard version of the drive will use a SATA 3GB/s interface and the BDE version will use the SATA 1.5GB/s interface. Power utilization is on par with 5400 RPM drives. Read more

Posted on Wed, 7 May 2008 06:39:45 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Super Talent Launches New SSD Drives

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Super Talent announced today a new line of MasterDrive SSDs that are 100% interchangeable with hard drives. Like all SSDs the new MasterDrives are faster, lighter and use less power in addition to being much more rugged than traditional hard drives.

The drives use a SATA-II interface and have a standard 2.5-inch form factor and use proprietary algorithms to extend the life of the drive. Now available are the FTM20GK25H 120GB 120/40 MB/sec drive for $699, the FTM60GK25H 60GB 120/40 MB/sec drive at $449, and the FTM30GK25H 30GB 120/40 MB/sec drive for $299. A pair of faster 120/70 MB/sec drives are available as well with the 60GB FTD60GK25H at $1299 and the FTD30GK25H 30GB at $699. Read more

Posted on Tue, 6 May 2008 07:44:19 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

SteelSeries 7G Keyboard Introduced

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

SteelSeries introduced the 7G professional gaming keyboard today. The keyboard is mechanical and increases responsiveness by more than 90% and is claimed to be 10 times more durable than normal keyboards.

The keyboard also promises no ghosting and uses 18-karat gold plated mechanical switches. The keyboard will support as many simultaneous key presses as there are keys on the keyboard according to SteelSeries. Read more

Posted on Mon, 5 May 2008 10:32:40 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

OCZ unveils World’s first PC3-16000 4GB DDR3 Kits

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. today unveiled the world’s first PC3-16000 4GB (2x2048MB) DDR3 kits.

The OCZ PC3-16000 4GB kits make use of the overclocking capabilities of the latest platforms and takes DDR3 to new performance levels.
The new OCZ DDR3 PC3-16000 Platinum Edition kits combine two 2GB modules for 4GB system density running at 9-9-9 latencies and 2GHz data rate. Read more

Posted on Mon, 5 May 2008 03:09:59 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

IronKey Launches 8GB Version

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

IronKey has announced that its line of secure enterprise hard drives has had a capacity increase. Previously the IronKey drives were available in 1Gb, 2GB, and 4GB capacities. Now users needing hardware encryption and more storage can get an 8GB version of the IronKey drive.

The 8GB version offers the same Cryptochip built onto the drive and comes with applications like Firefox, IronKey password manager, RSA SecurID and a Secure Session service. Administrators can also turn these applications off if desired. The 8Gb drive retails for $299. Read more

Posted on Fri, 2 May 2008 11:33:04 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Wacom Announces Capacitive Touchscreen Innovations

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Wacom announced that it had devised a major innovation in capacitive touchscreen technology that it would unveil at the International Society for Information Display exhibition. The patent-pending technology uses a newly designed low-power circuit and a reversing ramped electro-static field to provide pin point precision.

Wacom says the new technology can be used in two ways by integrating into its OEM tablet PC technology or on other platforms that require only a finger to operate. Wacom says touch screens using its new technology have a transmissivity of up to 95% compared to only 80 to 85% in resistive touchscreens. Read more

Posted on Fri, 2 May 2008 08:49:28 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Kingston Launches HyperX FB-DIMM for Intel Skulltrail

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Kingston has launched its latest memory product called HyperX FB-DIMM 800MHz for the Intel Skulltrail platform. The modules are 800MHz low latency fully buffered units designed for high-end servers, workstations and extreme gaming systems.

The RAM is shipping now in 2GB kits. Timings for the RAM are CL4-4-4-12 at 2V and the RAM is reasonably priced at $169 for a pair of 1GB DIMMS for 2GB of total memory. Kingston says when installed in quad-channel mode the memory can provide high data bandwidth. Read more

Posted on Fri, 2 May 2008 07:36:51 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Verbatim Announces 500GB Portable HDD

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Verbatim announced this week that it was adding a 500GB version is its 2.5-inch SmartDisk portable hard drive to the lineup. According to Verbatim this is the world’s first 500GB portable hard drive featuring a 9.5mm Z-height drive.

The drive is about the size of a PDA and joins the SmartDisk like that already has capacities of 120GB to 320GB available. The drive promises a weight of under 6 ounces and measures 3.38” x 5.38” x 0.63” and will be available with either a USB interface or with a USB/Firewire interface. Read more

Posted on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:05:12 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

GPU Market Sees Largest Q1 Growth in 6 Years

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

According to Jon Peddie Research the overall GPU market was up 4% in Q1 2008. Traditionally the first quarter of the year sees negative or flat growth as the market rebounds from the holiday shopping season of Q4.

Q1 2008 marked the first quarter to quarter growth in the GPU industry in 6 years according to JPR and the quarter was up 32% year to year. Intel and VIA were the biggest gainers for the quarter. Read more

Posted on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:01:12 CDT | by Shane McGlaun