Corsair has formally announced a range of XMS3 DDR3 memory modules to complement, initially, Intel’s Bearlake chipsets.
Category Archives: 64-bit Reviews
Asrock ConRoe945G-DVI is a new budget Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) motherboard featuring Intel’s 945G chipset and integrated Intel GMA950 graphics card. It has a Dual VGA Output: support DVI-D and D-Sub ports with DVI Graphics-SI card by independent display controllers. The ConRoe945G-DVI is equipped with four DIMM slots that can handle a total of 4GB of DDR2 SDRAM chips. For 3D acceleration, the motherboard supports ATI CrossFire technology via one PCI Express x16 slot and one AGI Express slot, which is basically a PCI Express x4 slot which is mostly used for SLI operation via CrossFire. The Asrock ConRoe945G-DVI motherboard handles four SATA2 slots,and it wears Windows Vista Premium Logo Hardware Ready. It’s current price is around $75 at online PC stores.
OCW Work Bench reveiwed and tested the Asrock ConRoe945G-DVI. You can read the story here.
Asrock ConRoe945G-DVI Specifications
LGA 775 for Intel® Core™ 2 Duo/ Pentium® XE / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D, supporting Conroe processors
Intel® 945G Chipset
Supports FSB 1066/800/533 MHz processor, EM64T CPU and H-T Technology
Supports Dual Channel DDRII667/533 x 4 DIMM slots with max. capacity up to 4GB
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950, Pixel Shader 2.0, DirectX 9.0 and Max. shared memory 192MB
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
Supports Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
Dual VGA Output: support DVI-D and D-Sub ports with DVI Graphics-SI card by independent display controllers
Hybrid Booster - Safe Overclocking Technology
Untied Overclocking : During Overclocking, FSB enjoys better margin due to fixed PCIE/ PCI Buses
4 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors
7.1 CH Vista™ Premium level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
Windows® Vista™ Premium Logo Hardware Ready
HD 8CH I/O: 4 ready-to-use USB ports, HD 7.1 channel audio jacks
The Dell XPS 410 is one of the first Dell’s computers to incorporate new Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) processor. Made for home entertainment and office productivity, the XPS 410 cheapest configuration costs $1595 at Dell’s site. For that price you get Core 2 Duo E6300 processor running on 1.86GHz, nVidia Geforce 7300LE (256MB) graphics card, 1GB of RAM and a 320GB SATA hard drive. In $1595 price is included 20-inch UltraSharp 2007FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel monitor and a 16x DVD+/-RW. The Dell XPS 410 comes with Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition. It’s interesting that there is no option to purchase this PC with XP Home or XP Pro. This PC is Windows Vista Capable.
The XPS 410 can be also configured with the faster E6700 processor, 4GB of RAM, 1TB of hard drive storage, 512MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX graphics card, the AGEIA PhysX physics accelerator and a 24-inch widescreen display. In that case price exceeds $4000.
The mid-range Dell’s XPS 410 configuration with Core 2 Duo E6600 and nVidia’s 256MB graphics card was reviewed by CNet and PC World.
Dell XPS 410 (Core 2 Duo E6600) Reviews. Desktops Reviews by CNET.
The good: Speedy Core 2 Duo CPU; quiet operation.The bad: Service lags behind other premium retailers’; expensive for what you get.
The bottom line: Brand-name shoppers will find that the upper-midrange Dell XPS 410 is an easy, if expensive, way to get into the next generation of CPUs without jumping all the way up to Dell’s XPS 700 gaming monster.
PC World - Dell XPS 410
The XPS 410 is a well-rounded system whose strong performance and enticing price make it an appealing choice. But if you require open drive bays for future storage expansion, you’ll be disappointed.
Here is the hand-picked list of the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 review quotes. This desktop PC motherboard supports new Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) processors.
Review: Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Core 2 Duo/Extreme motherboard - vnunet.com
Although it is expensive, this Gigabyte motherboard is loaded with features that will appeal to overclockers and, of course, supports Intel’s brand new Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors.
ActiveWin reviewed AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ processor. They also installed Windows Vista 64-bit edition on PC featuring Athlon 64 X2 5000+. Here are some quotes from this review with links to its pages.
AMD has been the king of 64-bit computing for some time now and no matter what Intel has attempted to throw in front of them, AMD have hurdled over it. With the release of the new AMD AM2 Motherboards and processors AMD are now not only pushing the envelope on the 64-bit and Dual Core front, they are reducing the amount of energy and power that the processors take up, thus producing quieter and cooler PC’s. The big question is, has the wait for the new AM2 processors and motherboards been worth it? Do we see any benefit from using DDR2 memory compared to the old DDR2 on the previous Socket 939 processors, read on and we’ll find out. This review will also concentrate on the future impact the processor will have when used with Windows Vista, we’ll be putting it through its paces on the newly released beta 2 version of the upcoming Microsoft operating system.
ActiveWin: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Processor- Review
One major enhancement in Windows Vista 64-bit edition is that they provide much improved security features over the plain 32-bit versions. thanks to the No Execute (NX) technology and Data Execution Protection (DEP) which help to try and prevent buffer overflows that are the most common used attacks around today. So all in all everything looks very promising for Windows Vista performance on the latest AMD based processors, personally I can’t wait for the new operating system to come out.
A Viiv compliant computer is generally comprised of a dual core, 64-bit Intel processor running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition. The motherboard chipset must also support 7.1 channel surround sound. Like Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition, the idea behind Viiv is to provide for a better, more refined user experience when watching movies and TV on a PC, as well as listening to music, gaming, viewing photos, and the capability to access on-demand entertainment services that deliver content straight to your PC. Viiv compliance requires a specific set of hardware dictated by Intel Corp. Current supported processors include Intel Pentium D, Intel Core Duo, and Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition. Current chipsets required to achieve the Viiv experience include Intel Express 975X, 955X, 945G, 945P, 945GT, and Mobile 945GM. LAN connections include Intel Pro/1000M, Intel Pro/ 100VE, and Intel Pro/100 VM.
Viiv Spec’d Alienware Area 51 3550
So, is Viiv what it is touted to be? Or is it just another computer? To experience the Viiv effect, I took a look at one of the latest offerings from Alienware that is Viiv-compliant, the Alienware Area-51 3550 Media Center Edition. The system ships with a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium D processor 920 with dual core technology running on an 800MHz frontside bus, 1GB 533MHz dual channel DDR2 SDRAM, a 3Gb/s 250GB SATA 7200 rpm hard drive with 8MB cache and native command queuing. Graphics is provided by an NVIDIA PCI Express x16 GeForce 6600LE with 128MB RAM.
Here is a part of Windows Vista x64 review with link to full story. Vista was installed on 64-bit laptop and 64-bit desktop PC.
I have been running Windows Vista for the last couple of months now on my main work laptop (64-bit AMD Turion, 2Gb ram, ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics), which I am typing this up on now, and it’s been running on my Dual Opteron workstation (Dual 2Gz Opteron, 2Gb ram, NVidia 6600 Graphics) at home since I got it and 3 months ago. Since then I have had some minor issues with different builds, but the system works without flaw 99% of the time, if not more. There are some driver issues (namely lack of a sound driver and card reader for my laptop, and I think the issues with the noise from the Opterons may be caused by an older system driver), but this is to be expected for beta software. I haven’t had my system Crash fully in a while now with it running. I have had one or 2 graphics driver crashes, but this did not cause an issue because the graphics driver was unloaded and reloaded and the system stayed up, and everything where I left it.
There is not a lot about x64 (64-bit) I can tell you that you probably don’t already know, but the thing that interests me most about it is the fact that Vista is fully supportive of x64 (64-bit). With Windows XP, x64 did not ship at RTM time, and it was a different kernel to XP. XP was version 5.0 of the kernel, but X64 XP was 5.1, the same kernel as windows 2003 server. This is not a bad thing, as Servers are generally more stable then client machines, but it caused some issues. Also drivers where a problem. Now I know I just said I had driver issues, but if all goes to plan, these will go away. At the moment there are a lot of machines selling with x64 (or EMT64) processors, but a lot of these ship with Windows XP 32 bit edition. I hope that the release of vista will solve this problem and give us some proper support for X64 as a platform.
Tiernans Comms Closet : Windows Vista Review: Part 1: Stability, performance, x64
