Check out this beast of a machine

NVIDIA teamed up the folks at Smooth Creations and a world-class case modder by the name of Richard “Darth Beavis” Surroz to build a hell of a gaming PC that is now for sale on eBay.

The idea came from NVIDIA employee, and former hardware editor guy, Paul Jastrzebski, who has had a friend of his recently diagnosed with a multiple myeloma -- a cancer of the blood. 100 percent of the proceeds of this sale will be going to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  And as you can see from the pictures, this system is pretty bad ass.

The case goes without saying; as for the rest of it: you get the best CPU out right now, the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition, watercooled, and dual GTX 295s are on graphics duty. Then you get 3D Vision (which we have a review of coming soon, by the way), and 12GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR3. Two 256GB SSD's in a Raid 0 setup will be storing the games, and two 1TB drives will take care of everything else. An Asus Rampage II Gene X58 motherboard gets the job done here.

So whatta-ya say? Want to place a bid? Right now the system is at $3,500 USD; NVIDIA probably hopes it sell for at least $10,000 USD. 

If your parents, wife, or whomever is not convinced that you need this computer, just tell them it is for charity.

Intel's rival scores $1.25 billion to their coffers

After being fined a whooping $1.45 billion by the EU early this summer for their anticompetitive behavior, Intel has now reached a settlement with AMD to put an end to the legal battle between the two companies.

The manufacturing giants have been fighting over antitrust and intellectual property for a while now, and seeked to end their disputes. As a part of the deal, AMD will receive a $1.25 billion cheque from Intel, and they also agreed on a five-year cross licensing agreement. Additionally, AMD will drop all pending charges against Intel.

The deal should make both sides happy since dragging a case like this in court comes with hefty legal bills. While AMD desperately needs cash assets now, money is hardly an issue for Intel. The cross license and drop of legal woes was designed to benefit both companies.

AMD and Intel stated that this settlement will let them "focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development.". In the meantime, Intel still faces pending litigation in the state of New York.

Six core CPUs and CPU/GPU Fusion coming in 2010/2011

Two detail-packed leak photos turned up in Japan recently. They are pictures taken of AMD's milestone roadmap, for desktop and notebook parts, stretching into 2011. As always with CPU development, there are some big plans and changes ahead.

Probably the most exciting CPU of the bunch is AMD's upcoming hexa-core (6 core) CPU. Codenamed Thuban, it will be a 45nm part, guessed to be clocked at about 2.8GHz.

On the graphics side of things, we can expect 2011 to be the year of HD 5000 series; HD 6000 won't be touching down until 2011. Codenamed Northern Island, HD 6000 will be a 32nm design.

The boxes in orange on both roadmaps show AMD's new 'Fusion' designs. The Fusion chips will be CPU/GPU hybrid chips. While we don't expect Fusion to be able to cut through many DX11 games, we can guess that it will be a cost effective way of delivering integrated graphics for the needs of the mainstream. 

See Unigine's 'Heaven' in action in these videos

Hot on the heels of Microsoft's Windows 7 release, software developer Unigine has unleashed the world's first DirectX 11 benchmark unto the world after five years of development, dubbing it 'Heaven.'

Unigine's engine makes use of hardware tesselation, a feature that has been present on ATI graphics card for a few generations, but is now being put to full use. Without going into too much detail, it adds polygons within polygons so developers can use compressed JPEG images without sacrificing image quality. In other words, we get better looking graphics and, best of all, without a performance hit on DirectX 11 hardware. The video below show's tesselation in action compared to low quality textures rendered normally.

As you can see, the benchmark is nothing short of impressive and, surprisingly, performance is actually pretty good.

In case you haven't picked up an HD5000-series card yet, the benchmark is also backward compatible with DirectX 9 and 10 as well as OpenGL. However, only the full blown DirectX 11 can take advantage of the latest features including DirectCompute and tesselation. If you're still riding the XP bandwagon, you will need to upgrade in order to enjoy those latest advancements in graphics technologies.

Oh and if you feel the urge to start your own game studio and use Unigine's product, it's going to cost you right around $25,000. Of course, it's easier to simply pick up an HD5000 card while waiting for one of the upcoming DirectX 11 titles including DiRT 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, Aliens vs Predator or the already-released Battleforge.

Low power 40 watt ACP processor for dense computing environments

AMD has announced the immediate availability of its new 40 watt ACP six-core Opteron EE processor designed for high density data centers, such as those found in cloud computing data centers. AMD has long touted performance per watt as one of the benefits of its Opteron family of CPUs and with this latest offering, it is claiming a 31% higher performance-per-watt rating over standard quad-core Opterons.

With server densities increasing in data centers devoted to Web services and cloud computing, heat and power usage are primary concerns; utilizing the new 40 watt ACP in place of the original six-core 75 watt Opterons would enable a 40% greater density in a single rack while still remaining within the same power budget.

AMD has said the new processors will be available from system builders but didn't disclose pricing or availability on individual chips.

That's quite the performance unlock

For many months now, hardware enthusiasts have known that it is possile to gain an extra core with a just a little bit of tinkering. With the ACC feature (advanced clock calibration) found in many new motherboards, mnay people have successfully unclocked a second core on cheap single-core AMD Sempron CPUs, and many others have had luck unlocking a fourth core on Phenom II X3 parts.

But that's not all that can be accomplished with a little ACC'ing, though.

A few overclockers have found recent success turning a Athon II X4 620 or 630 CPU into a full-fledged Phenom II X4 just by using ACC. Instead of a core being unlocked, the ACC is capable of activating 6MB of L3 cache turned off on the chip -- this will bring a huge performance increase, as you might well imagine.

It turns of that for now, the Athlon II X4 620/630 are built on a 'Deneb' Phenom II design. This chips have not hit the mainstream market yet and will not for another few weeks. The 2.6GHz X4 620 will be about $100 USD, while the 2.8 GHz X4 630 will be selling for about $125. 

A 2.6GHz quad core for $100? Count us in.

Be aware though: it is expected that AMD will switch over to the less expensive 'Propus' design for the Athlon II X4 620 and 630. Propus doesn't have the 6MB cache at all, so your chances of activating it using the ACC will be really slim indeed. When this switch will occur is anyone's guess right now.

$111 worth of discounts, plus a few MIRs

Many manufacturers teamed up to offer customers a mega bundle deal on an AMD Dragon Platform computer, available on Newegg.com. It comprises eight, yes eight components. In other words, what you get is a complete PC. The only thing left to do is build it.

This computer sets you at a not too shabby $679.88 after MIRs, or $719.88 without. Moreover, you get free shipping on this large package. Buying each part separately would cost you $831.81 and most probably a somewhat steep shipping cost.

With the already awesome price/performance ratio of the dragon platform, this deal just make it even more attracting. Don't miss out on it!

$205 -- but they won't ship it to you just yet

The Core i5 is coming soon -- really soon, it appears. A sales page for the Core i5 750 went up today over at Fry's Electronics. Most folks didn't expect the i5 to make a retail appearance for about another month.

The Core i5 is a Lynnfield, featuring the new socket LGA1156 -- you can kind of think of it as a mainstream version of the new technology introduced in the higher-end Core i7 parts. 

The Core i5 750 is clocked at 2.66 MHz, has 8MB L2 cache and a dual channel memory controller (we are pretty sure -- even though Fry's claims its a triple channel.) At Fry's, it is selling for a reasonable $205 -- but don't but it yet, as the accompanying P55 motherboards aren't yet available, even if they were shipping the chip. 

You can check out our review of the upcoming P55 platform, and the Core i5, over here.

Get yourself a very cheap dual core

Hardware enthusiasts all over the place were thrilled to hear the news, back in February, that triple core AMD processors could be unlocked by some motherboards to gain an extra processing core. But it turns out that the X3's were not the only chips that had the potential for cores being unlocked. 

The AMD Sempron 140 is a low-cost, single-core AMD CPU. Here in Vancouver, it costs about $50. As it turns out, if you have a motherboard that supports the unlocking feature (typically called 'Advanced Clock Calibration' in the BIOS), you can sometimes unlock a second core of the Sempron 140, effectively making it an Athlon II X2.

This trick will not work 100% of the time though, keep in mind. Generally AMD disables cores that aren't working right on the CPU, for the single core Sempron parts. Conceivably though, if they didn't have enough chips in the fab plants that had a dysfunctional core, then they would have to disable working cores on CPUs in order to fill the Sempron production quotas. For those folks out there that this does work for, it is a extremely cheap way to get a 2.7 GHz dual-core processor that also has decent overclocking potential. 

Certainly for those people that know what they are doing, with tricks like this it is possible to build a great gaming computer for only a couple hundred of bucks.

32nm Core i5-660, Core i5-650 and more touching down Q1 '10

A leaked Intel roadmap turned up today on Chinese tech site it168. And since its a Intel roadmap you should know that it doesn't have anything to do with highways or cars. In fact, it has a whole lot to do with new CPUs that will be coming out in the first few months of 2010.

Codenamed Clarkdale, Intel's new 32nm CPU will have integrated graphics built right into the CPU. (Hopefully with enough horsepower to handle games a bit better then some other IGPs you commonly find.)

In retail, these Clarkdale chips will sell under the Core i5 and Core i3 branding. The fastest of the bunch, the Core i5-670 will be clocked at a healthy 3.46GHz.

The most inexpensive Clarkdale will not be worthy of the Core i(something) name; so instead, it'll be branded as a Pentium G6950 (presumably, the 'G' is for graphics).

Note that the 2 / 4 column below denotes how many threads the CPU will be able to handle. The first number is the actual physical cores, while the second number determines how many cores will run with HyperThreading enabled.

Any questions on this? Just ask'em in the comments section below and perhaps someone will be able to fill you in. Someone such as myself. 

2.93 GHz dual core for less than a $100

The best thing about computer hardware in general is that prices just keep on falling.

According to a tasty tidbit uncovered by tech site Fudzlla, Intel is releasing a E6500 CPU next week. It is going to be a fairly powerful little chip, for only about $85 USD.

The E6500 is a Wolfdale design, with 2MB of cache and a FSB of 1066. It is clocked at a not-a-joke speed of 2.93 GHz. A little bit overclocking should have no troubles bringing things to 3.5GHz and above.

With prices as low as these for fast dual cores, it's a good sign that the age of the quad-core is finally fully touching down in the mainstream.

New $4.2 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility in upstate New York

AMD spun off it manufacturing facilities earlier this year to form GLOBALFOUNDRIES in partnership with the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi. Part of AMD's Asset Smart strategy, the new venture assumed control of AMD's fab facilities and there was speculation on whether AMD's plan to construct a new, state-of-the-art facility in upstate New York was still going to happen.

Its looks like we can put those fears to rest as today AMD joined GLOBALFOUNDRIES and a host of local, state and federal officials to break ground on the Fab 2 manufacturing facility at the Luther Forest Technology Campus. When construction is complete and Fab 2 comes on line in 2012 it is expected to be the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world. Fab 2 will be a 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility designed for 32 nm process technologies.

Athlon II X2 240/245 CPUs - dual core for under $70

AMD announced two new low cost dual core processors on Wednesday that bring 45nm process technology to users at prices slated to be under $67. The new CPUs, the Athlon II X2 240 and 245, are clocked at 2.8GHz and 2.9GHz respectively. Both chips feature 2MB of L2 cache and with a TDP of 65W.

The new processors are geared toward providing the performance needed for today's mainstream applications while remaining cool. Given today's current economic conditions, the new processors will allow PC builders and OEMs to provide affordable systems that don't force users to sacrifice capabilities that would crimp their digital lifestyle.

Several online sellers are already listing the CPUs for sale with the Athlon II X2 945 going for as little as $65US.

That's a lot of cash...

The AMD Phenom II X4 TWKR edition CPU was one of the most rare CPUs ever made. Only 100 were commisioned. Neoseeker was one of the few websites in the world lucky enough to relieve one for analysis -- Carl Poirier took a look at the rare chip, you can check out the article over here. The CPU is hand-picked to heaven-sent mana for professional overclockers, who using L2N and other exotic cooling, should be able to push the clock frequency as high as around the 7 GHz mark.  

One went up for auction a little while ago, on eBay. It didn't take much time at all for the price to sky-rocket.

Finally, the auction has come to a close. If the bidder is legitimate, the final price tag for this rare piece of silicon will be a whopping $11,600 USD. This could be an all-time record price for a single desktop CPU. 

The money isn't going into the pockets of some lucky hardware reviewer though. The proceeds from the sale are for a good cause: Family Eldercare, an organization that assists the elderly with disabilities, and the people who look after them.

Dual cores and quad core price cuts, but not for the Core i7

Intel performed a series of price cuts today, lowering retail prices about 15% across different 11 chips.

While the price drop on the least expensive chip on the chart below, the E1500, might be in reaction to AMD's cheap Sempron X1 140 coming out soon, the price-cuts on the higher end quad cores is seen by many tech enthusiasts to be in anticipation of Intel's release of the new "Lynnfield" Core i7s and Core i5 -- the more mainstream-priced variant of their newest technology currently only found in the Core i7.

 One thing to keep in mind for the chart above: these prices are based on trays of CPU's sold to retail outlets -- not the retail prices consumers will be paying.

Possibly as soon as next week

A new chip from AMD is coming out within the next two weeks. It is the Sempron X1 140 -- an inexpensive, single-core CPU that will be selling for around $60 USD or so.

Codenamed "Sargas", you can imagine the Sempron X1 140 as single-core variant of the 45nm Athlon II X2 that goes by the codename of "Regor." Because this CPU has one core turned off, it looks like there is chance that through using the Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) feature on some motherboards' BIOS, you could conceivably unlock a functional second core. 

The Sempron X1 140 runs at 2.7 GHz, with a TDP of 45W. It also has 128K of L1 cache, 1MB of L2 cache, and a dual-channel DDR2/DDR3 memory interface.

The Sempron x1 140 will be battling cheap Intel dual-cores, such as the Celeron E1400 (2.0GHz), which also sells around $60.

100% of the final sale price will be donated to the non-profit organization Eldercare

It seems AMD has put one Phenom II TWKR Edition up for sale. The auction on Ebay started at $1.00 and is already up to $100.00 by the time I am writing this news. The auction has 5 days remaining, leaving it plenty of time to go up.

All profits will go to The Family Eldercare organization located in Ausin, Texas, where the AMD campus is. This organization provides essential services for elders, adults with disabilities and those who care for them.

So, extreme overclockers, grab your credit card and start bidding for a great cause! That chip is up to the task when it comes to achieving records. Here is your chance to get your hands on one of these very few limited edition processors.

According to Japanese sources

Intel's upcoming new CPU model, codenamed Lynnfield, are due sometime in late 2009, perhaps around October. The Lynnfield chips will be a more mainstream-friendly version of the Bloomfield design, Intel's first high-end Core i7 CPUs. Lynnfields will run on the new socket LGA 1156.

According to a Japanese tech sitie called PC Watch, the first three Lynnfield models that will be released will be called the Core i7 870 (2.93GHz), and the Core i7 850(2.80GHz). Additionally, a third Lynnfield will be the first chip to bare the Core i5 designation, and will be called the Core i5 750 (2.66GHz). The two i7 CPUs will be capable of running 8 threads (4 cores with Hyper-Threading), while the Core i5 750 will be limited to 4 threads (4 cores with no Hyper-Threading). 

In frosty Finland...

A new overclocking achievement was unlocked over the weekend, as a European crew was able to push a hand-picked Phenom II 955 Black Edition AMD CPU to 7000 MHz. This is the first quad-core to break the 7 GHz mark.

The overclocking event was organized by AMD, and held in Pirkkahalli, which is someplace in Finland. Besides drinking, hanging out in saunas, and going to nightclubs, the overclockers found time to use the combination of liquid heluim and liquid nitrogen to cool things down with DFI LanParty motherboards. For those of you who don't follow overclocking very much, liquid helium is sort of the new liquid nitrogen when it comes to cooling, being able to push things down to the valkyrie-freezing point of below -230 Celsuis.

Some random Finns.

Overclocker Pieter-Jan "Massman" Plaisir was the one who landed the big score, with some help of his buddies.

With illustrations!

Funtasticus has a great new post up showing some of the worst cases of unhealty computer use; amused and inspired, we rounded up our own collection of images -- a humourous break from all the serious 'merger this and court case that' news, if you will.

So, if you can't remember the last time you've seen daylight, or what the word "daylight" means anymore, this one's for you (and us).

Lastly, your computer obsession has probably gone too far if "It's All About the Pentiums" is still your favourite Weird Al song:

The Phenom II X4 965 is coming soon, with an extra 200MHz

3.4GHz will be the stock clock of the new X4 965, making it the fastest quad-core on the market, along with the Xeon X5492 from Intel, which is a 150W part, though. The 965 will keep the 125W TDP, as is mentioned on ASRock's website. It will feature the same cache as the 955 and it will be a Black Edition.

We saw here that the Phenom II X4 955 often beat the Core i7 920 in gaming due to its higher frequency. With an extra 200MHz, the 965 will probably be able to compete with the Core i7 940's performance in many cases, which currently sells for $587.17 on NCIXUS.com. However, AMD will most probably launch it at a very competing price, which will force Intel to cut prices on its Core 2 and maybe Core i7 line.

This time, I would not be surprised if the Phenom II X4 965 had a bit more overclocking potential than the 940 and 955. It would be somewhat disappointing if on air it also maxed out at around 3.8GHz, which would be only a 400MHz increase. This is what we will see if Neoseeker gets his hands on one!

Late night just got a little creepier

Intel will "again be the subject of some good-humored laughs with Conan O'Brien", having signed on as a sponsor of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

The corporation underwrote O'Brien's visit to the San Francisco Bay area a couple of years ago, so the new move extends their partnership with NBC. Intel states it "leverages O'Brien's unique ability to humorously convey to his viewers Intel's unique personality, cutting-edge technology and futuristic innovations."

According to the press release, their "Sponsors of Tomorrow" campaign will be "woven organically on-air and online through NBC Universal." An idea of what's going down can be had at the new dedicated NBC webpage, which features Conan taking a trip to Intel HQ, also found below (not the best thumbnail shot, but hey).

"Intel is paving a path to the future, and creating new ways to connect to people in meaningful ways," said CJ Bruno, group president, Intel Americas. "While we are passionate about technology with a serious impact on society, there is also a funny, quirky side to Intel people – and we want to share that side of our personality too." Sponsors of Tomorrow isn't about one particular Intel product or processor, it's about the Intel brand overall. Among other things, the campaign illustrates the ability to turn science fiction into science fact and outlines our investment in science education outside our walls."

"We had a great experience working with Intel a few years ago when we took the 'Late Night' show to San Francisco,” added Jeff Ross, executive producer of "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." "Now that we have moved to California, Intel has given us a great opportunity to have some more fun with them. They have been a great partner."

Core i7, i5, i3 and more

Intel, the worlds largest chip manufacturer, has just revealed its plans for upcoming processors. The marketing folks at Intel figured the current naming scheme was too confusing and is now going for a complete overhaul.

The Core i7 brand will include the fastest processors, including the current ones using the LGA1366 socket and upcoming Lynnfield on LGA1156. Basically, every quad core processor with HyperThreading and Turbo enabled falls into the i7 line.

However, that's not it. Some of the high end mobile parts sporting the Clarkfield core will also carry the Core i7 name. In fact, the dual and quad core variants with HT and Turbo enabled will join the series.

It makes sense, everything with both HT and Turbo enabled is an i7, but having two different desktop sockets and three architecture derivatives in the same series seems rather confusing -- Core i5 is much easier to comprehend; it'll simply include desktop Lynnfield and mobile Clarkfield chips with HT disabled, but Turbo enabled. Most of the mainstream desktop and mobile chips should fall into this category.

Finally, Core i3 grabs the Lynnfield and Clarkfield processors with HT and Turbo disabled. Those should offer good performance at an affordable price tag.

Basically, the Core line will be Intel's performance processors, while the Pentium, Celeron and Atom brands will remain for the entry level market and netbooks.

Current Core 2 Duo and Quad parts will be phased out as time passes. Also, the Centrino platform will shift off their path to instead simply represent WiFi and WiMax products.

Intel thinks this new naming convention is much less confusing for the consumer. Do you?

Q9505 to replace the Q9400

It looks like Intel is going to be putting out another socket 775 Yorkfield 45nm Core 2 CPU this generation; simply rebranding to the Q9505 and knocking down the L2 cache to only 6MB, it will share the same specs as the Q9550.

The Q9505 should cost around $200 US when released and its sole purpose is to replace Q9400. Currently the Q9550 sells for around 230 US and you get double the L2 cache, which will give you a better performance out of the box.

For the dollar conscious consumer this may not be a good deal, but for the enthusiasts and gamers, the Q9550 is worth the few extra dollars.

Introducing the Phenom II 42 TWKR Black Edition

While I thought we would not see another processor launch from AMD very soon, this information appears on the Internet. Apparently, an early sample has been provided to Wallace Santos, Maingear PC founder and CEO.

But what do TWKR stands for? For now, the most probable guess would be "Tweaker".  Let's hope Mr. Santos will soon post some results so we can know what it is all about!