SST Unveils World's First Low Volt, High Speed Quad IO Flash Memory

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SST has announced the world's first low-voltage, high-speed quad I/O serial flash memory. The memory features an 80MHz operating frequency and a new specialized instruction set. The memory has a 26WF series serial quad IO 4-bit multiplexed IO interface.

The high power and low energy consumption of the new memory makes it ideal for use in portable electronics like Bluetooth headsets, GPS devices, and other portable electronic gear. The memory has sustained burst data rates of up to 320Mbit/sec. Read more

Posted on Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Best Buy's Geek Squad Upgrades Your XP Or Vista PC To Windows 7 For $39.99

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Best Buys' Geek Squad offer full upgrade service for customers moving to Windows 7 from Windows Vista or Windows XP for $39.99. Normally they charge for a Operating System Install $129.99.
If you are not an experienced Windows user this is a great offer. Just remember to backup your data before handing over your PC or notebook to the Geeks.

"Some users will be able to perform the upgrade on their own, once they receive their disc from their computer’s manufacturer," said Geek Squad Agent Alex Smith. "For users with more complicated installations, such as upgrading from Windows XP, the process is more involved. It may be better to leave such computers as is or buy a new machine entirely. We’ve built a couple of basic tools that can help you through the upgrade process - Best Buy Labs. And for those who simply don’t want to deal with the hassle – we’re ready to help."
Read more

Posted on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:18:14 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

New AMD Athlon II X4 Quad-Core CPU Is Priced Under $100

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AMD today announced the first ever quad-core processor for less than $100 Suggested System Builder Price (SSBP).
By balancing the power of new AMD Athlon II X4 quad-core processors and the AMD 785G chipset featuring ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics, AMD promises to deliver smooth HD visuals and the foundation for a great Windows 7 experience.

The 45nm Athlon II X4 quad-core is supposed to be energy efficient, but still provide the performance necessary to satisfy the needs of an HD media computer. See also these AMD Athlon II X4 Reviews.
Read more

Posted on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:47:53 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Dual and Quad-Core iPhones Coming

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I almost feel sorry for the iPhone 3GS. It hasn't even been birthed to the world yet, and everyone's already talking about how much better its little brother is going to be. That's right; we've got some of the very first rumors about the next new iPhone. The rumor mill just started churning over news that Apple's next smartphone might contain dual or even quad core technology.

The current iPhones are powered by a single-core ARM chip, which runs at speeds of about 600 mHz. The Cortex A9, ARM's next generation of chip, is 'definitely' going to turn up in smartphones starting in 2010, according to James Bruce of ARM.

Posted on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:20:00 CDT | by Robert Evans

Quad-Core MacBooks On The Way?

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Mac sales haven't exactly been stunning in light of the incredible sales numbers the iPhone and iPod Touch have seen. The future of Apple obviously rests more with the iPhone and iPod line than it does with Macs. But, that doesn't mean that the MacBook is dead. In fact, thanks to Intel it's about to get a quad core processor.

Intel just went over its notebook plans for the near future, and the Calpella notebook platform featured heavily in them. The Calpella will be designed for 13, 15.6, 17.1, and 18.4-inch high-end notebook products. The Calpella will come in 1.6 and 1.73 GHz Core 1 Quad chips ($364 and $546, respectively), as well as a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Extreme XE chip ($1054).

Posted on Tue, 12 May 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Robert Evans

NVIDIA Unveils Quadro FX 4800 Graphics Card for Mac Pro

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Today NVIDIA announced the availability of their ultra high-end Quadro FX 4800 graphics card for Mac Pro users.

The card NVIDIA describes as “market’s most advanced professional graphics card” features similar specs as the recently-released PC version, including:

• A “massive” 1.5GB frame buffer
• Memory bandwidth up to 76.8 GB/sec
• Boot camp support
• Two dual-link DVI connectors equipped with 3 pin min-din connector for added “3D stereoscopic imaging” according to the release

NVIDIA GM of Professional Solutions, Jeff Brown, said in a statement, “Some of the world’s most challenging visual computing problems are solved on the Mac platform. The Quadro FX 4800 provides the power and speed to meet these demanding requirements.”

Posted on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:45:00 CDT | by James Douglas

Mac Pro 2009 Quad-Core and Eight-Core get reviewed

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Apple unveiled the new Mac Pro computers in early March. The new Apple Mac Pro 2009 are based on the Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" CPUs and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB. There are two new Mac Pro computers to choose from. The Quad-Core Mac Pro starts at $2,499 and the 8-Core Mac Pro (2x Nehalem) starts at $3,299.
Macworld has published a review of both new Mac Pro machines.
Quote from the review: "The new Mac Pros, with their cutting-edge Nehalem processor technology, are able to execute more tasks at a faster clip, despite lower processor speeds. And their new internal design makes adding hard drives, memory cards, and PCI Express 2.0 cards easier than ever. Apple’s most expandable Mac is the pro platform for power users. Read more

Posted on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

New AMD Phenom II Triple- and Quad-Core Processors

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AMD announces new addition to the Dragon platform. AMD unleashes five new AMD Phenom II processors, including the industry’s only 45nm triple-core processors and three new AMD Phenom II quad-core processors.
These AMD Phenom II processors deliver choice and lay the foundation for memory transition; they fit in either AM2+ or AM3 sockets and support DDR2 or next generation DDR3 memory technology. Read more

Posted on Mon, 9 Feb 2009 02:23:48 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Verbatim Announces Quad Interface External Hard Drive

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Verbatim has launched two new external hard drives in 500GB and 1TB capacities that offer quad interfaces. The new drives will work with both Mac and PC computers. Connectivity options include USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA II.

The new drives weigh 3.3 pounds and measure 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.5-inches and use 3.5-inch 7200rpm desktop hard drives inside the cases with 32MB of cache. A silent cooling fan inside the case keeps the drives cool. Read more

Posted on Mon, 5 Jan 2009 08:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

DreamGEAR Announces Line of Quad Controller Chargers

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We already talked a bit about the new guitar controller DreamGEAR announced recently. The company also announced a new Quad Dock charging station that allows for charging of four controllers at the same time.

This sort of quad charger is nothing new for the Nintendo Wii, but quad chargers aren’t something you see that often for the PS3 or Xbox 360. The PS3 charger can recharge up to four controllers at once and the Xbox 360 version can charge up to four Xbox controller battery packs. Read more

Posted on Fri, 2 Jan 2009 08:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Acer Announces Aspire 8930G Upgrade with Quad Core CPU

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Acer has the most popular netbook on the market right now with its Aspire One. Acer has announced a newly updated model of its Aspire 8930G, the 8930G-7665. The new upgrade brings the addition of an Intel Quad Core CPU to the notebook.

The machine uses the Intel core 2 Quad mobile Q9000 CPU with 6MB of L2 cache, a 1066MHz FSB and a clock speed of up to 2GHz. The notebook's display is an 18.4-inch unit with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Graphics are handled by an NVIDIA 9700M GT GPU. Read more

Posted on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Geek Squad Announces At Home and In Store Game Console Setup

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Just in time for the holiday season and parents buying new game consoles Geek Squad at Best Buy locations around the country are now offering video game console set up in home and in store. Setup options include transferring data to a new system and connecting the systems to the Internet.

Set up can also include installing and enabling parental controls to help keep kids safe online. One of the things that parents often don’t consider when buying games that may be rated appropriately for their kids is that online components can introduce language from other players that is far from appropriate. Read more

Posted on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

AMD Announces Shanghai Quad-core Opteron's Now Available

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AMD released its Shanghai 45nm quad-core Opteron CPUs today. The CPUs promise up to a 35% decrease in power consumption at idle and 35% more performance than previous Opteron CPUs. The CPUs feature AMD-Virtualization technology to deliver faster world switch time and enhance virtual machine efficiency.

L2 cache size has increased to 6MB in the new processors and support for DDR2-800 RAM is offered. AMD says that coming enhancements to the AMD Direct Connect Architecture with coherent HyperTransport 3.0 will provide up to 17.6GB/s of bandwidth for processor-to-processor communications. The release is set for Q2 2009. The new Opteron's are available at 75-watt ACP running from 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz and are available now. Read more

Posted on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:59:29 CST | by Shane McGlaun

NVIDIA Announces Quadro FX 5800

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NVIDIA has announced its latest Quadro graphics card called the FX 5800. The card uses CUDA massively Parallel Processing Architecture and is designed for robust performance for the oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, and styling/design applications.

The FX 5800 offers 4GB of graphics memory, a first in the graphics industry. Other features include up to 240 CUDA programmable parallel cores and more. NVIDIA says that other advanced features of the card include interactive 4D modeling with time lapse, memory bandwidth of up to 102 GB per second, fill rates over 52 billion texels per second and 300 million triangles per second and more. Read more

Posted on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:18:21 CST | by Shane McGlaun

MeWe Quad Charger Docking Station Review

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Today we are looking at the MeWe Quad Charging Station. The device allows four Wii Remotes to be docked and converts them to rechargeable power with four new battery doors and four rechargeable battery packs.

The kit is rather large, but it works very well and is perfect for the frequent Wii user to keep their controllers charged. Read more

Posted on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:18:20 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

New NVIDIA Quadro CX is a $2k Photoshop User's Dream

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NVIDIA introduced its new accelerator for Adobe Creative Suite 4 software, the NVIDIA Quadro CX. The Quadro CX was architected to deliver the best performance for the new GPU-optimized features of Adobe Creative Suite 4. If you have $2,000 you can take your Photoshop experience to completely new levels.
With NVIDIA Quadro CX users can encode H.264 videos at lightning-fast speeds with the NVIDIA CUDA-enabled plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, RapiHD from Elemental Technologies; accelerate rendering time for advanced effects; and accurately preview what deliverables will look like with 30-bit color or uncompressed 10-bit/12-bit SDI before final output.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 software now has added optimization to take advantage of GPU technology, including the parallel processing capability in the Quadro CX GPU. Read more

Posted on Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:48:33 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Quad Charger for Nintendo Wii Remotes unveiled by MeWe

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MeWe World, Inc. unveiled a charger for the Wii console that chargers four Wiimotes at the same time, ideal for Wii parties or if your whole family is hooked on Wii Sports.
The new Wii quad charger station includes four fast-charging rechargeable nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) battery packs for up to 13 hours of play time per remote, eliminating the need to constantly purchase and replace standard AA batteries. Read more

Posted on Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:20:23 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Intel Q9650 3.00GHz Quad Core Processor Review

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TechwareLabs has published a review of the Intel Q9650 3.00GHz Quad Core Processor.
Quote from the review: "The Intel Q9650 is a processor that Intel is very proud of, and rightfully so. Reaching standard speeds of 3.0GHz per core, this processor is a force to reckon with. We put the Q9650 under a lot of strain as we ran several benchmarks and games to see how this processor really performed. Read more

Posted on Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

New NVIDIA Quadro Fx Notebook GPUs announced

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NVIDIA announces the introduction of a new series of NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile GPUs, featuring an NVIDIA CUDA Parallel Computing Processor.
Workstation manufacturers such as Dell, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP and Lenovo are now offering the new series of Quadro FX mobile GPUs across a wide range of professional notebook workstations.

Highlighting the flagship product of the series is the Quadro FX 3700M, with 128 CUDA Parallel Computing Processor cores, which offers an unprecedented 1 GB of dedicated graphics memory for graphics-performance hungry industries such as oil and gas exploration, mechanical design and digital content creation. Read more

Posted on Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:39:34 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NVIDIA Quadro Plex Systems unveiled

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The new NVIDIA Quadro Plex Systems bring visual Supercomputing to the deskside with 480 processing cores, NVIDIA CUDA programmability and 8GB of Graphics Memory.
The new D series of NVIDIA Quadro Plex Visual Computing Systems (VCS) are available in deskside or rackmount configurations.

The Quadro Plex systems are ideal for the styling and design, geosciences and scientific visualization industries, working with extremely large 3D models, datasets and power walls. Read more

Posted on Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:35:32 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

AMD Quad-Core Opterons Set World Record in Enterprise Benchmark

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AMD announced that it will be supporting Microsoft's RTM version of SQL Server 2008. AMD says that SQL Server 2008 running on Opteron quad-core processors will offer best of breed platform for enterprise data needs.

AMD also says that a HP ProLiant DL785 G5 server has set a new world record on the TPC-H@300 GB decision support benchmarks with a score of 52860 QphH. AMD says that these scores prove that its quad-core parts will allow customers to deploy large enterprise solutions with optimum scalability and performance at competitive pricing. Read more

Posted on Thu, 7 Aug 2008 06:36:13 CDT | by Shane McGlaun