News Bits: Intel Beating AMD, Micron RealSSD Introduced, School Buys Eee PCs

California school district to get 1,000 Asus Eee PCs

The Fresno Unified school district in California has invested $650,000 in Asus Eee PCs, which will be deployed in roughly 60 classrooms over the next few weeks. They will be use along textbooks and students will be able to use them for essays, drawings, and other activities.

Read More (Engadget.com)
Read our review of the Eee PC


Intel remains #1 chipmaker, AMD drops off top 10

Research firm iSuppli predicts that chip maker AMD will drop off the top 10 list by the end of 2007. Intel will remain number one with a 12.5% market share, and Samsung will come in second place with a 7.4% share. Toshiba and Texas Instruments will occupy third and fourth place respectively.

Read More (Reuters.com)


Micron introduces RealSSD Solid State Disks

Micron Technology introduced the RealSSD series of solid state disk (SSD) products on Nov. 29. The RealSSD lineup includes 1.8- and 2.5-inch models for notebooks and desktops, with capacities ranging from 32GB to 64GB. They have a SATA 3.0Gbps interface and are housed in lightweight plastic, which, according to the company makes the drives 50% lighter than similar density hard drives.

Mass production of the drives is expected to start in Q1 2008.

Read More (Laptoping.com)


Phillips introduces notebooks in Brazil

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Phillips is planning to release two notebooks in Brazil this December. The two models will be smaller than most mainstream notebooks. One model will have an 11-inch screen, Core Duo U2400, 120GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and a DVD burner, all housed in a magnesium alloy case. The 13-inch model will have a more powerful Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and a DVD burner. The 11-inch model will carry a pricetag of R$5,499 (~US$2,477), and the 13-inch R$3,999 (~US$2,165). According to Phillips, both of the models were designed for the Brazil market so there is little chance these will show up in the states.

Read More (Engadget.com)


Nvidia to introduce GeForce 9-series in February

According to market sources, Nvidia will introduce its next-generation GeForce 9-series graphics cards in February of 2008. They will be based on a 65nm manufacturing process and have support for DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1. The high-end model will be codenamed D9E and the mid-range chip, the D9P, will come out at a later date in June. It will be based on a 55nm manufacturing process.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

Zalman introduces ZM-NC2000 notebook cooler

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Zalman has introduced a new notebook cooler designed specifically for 17-inch notebooks, the ZM-NC2000. It is an update to the popular ZM-NC1000. The NC2000 is slightly wider and deeper so it can fit 17-inch notebooks better.

The NC2000 has a built-in USB hub, fan RPM control, and is available in silver or black. At current it is not available in the US but it should be sometime in the future.

Read More (Zalman.co.kr)

Special thanks to forum member Gophn for submitting this link

 

Made for the Brazilian market? Ha, the 11.1" model at least is just a rebranded Twinhead F11Y / Averatec 1500 (1579).

 

i guess this means we wont be expecting a 9600M until way later in the year. It is buy buy buy for xmas then. no point waiting.

 

No point in getting the 8600GT of 8800GTX now I guess I'll wait for the 9600M GT or 9800M GTX xD.

 

What a surprise

 

It's not looking good for AMD!

 

Dang now i have to wait till not next Macbook Pro but the one after that! No jokes! I am paranoid!

 

Sigh... I loved AMD too. I really hope they come back to #1 for desktops (in terms of performance). Anything coming up from AMD that (should) kick Intel's butt? Or are they still going to be behind?

 

Phenom from AMD, but Intel has a more quicker more deadly response.

 

Well, considering the current non-Penryn chips are beatings ''AMD's savior''(Phenom) for less $ it doesn't look to good but, there not dead yet. There bulldog core may show promise, as with Fusion(AMD's answer to Nehalem) but, unless AMD can offer there chips much cheaper then Intel's chips it doesn't look(again) good. Phenom is cheaper then Penryn though, so maybe they will succeed.......

 

Who said the 9XXX will be for notebooks anyway ? Surely not soon when the 8800m is expected to be available only 2008 Q1 .

Btw where is that Gateway with 8800m press release ?

 

I can see AMD going under soon, seriously they had to sell 14% of their company to investors in Dubai (I think it was?) just to stay in business.

 

Well they say that the new Zalman is launched, but the specs for both Zalman notebook coolers are the same.

Just forget the 9xxx series. It will take another year before it will be avaible for ntoebooks.

And I also feel sorry about AMD. Competition is always good for the consumer!

 

Bah! That describes 90 percent of the major corporations in the United States in 2007. Every company and their momma sold out to oil-rich foreign nations in 2007. America is going bankrupt. Eventually everyone from your neighbor to your favorite company CEO and CFO will wake up and realize the importance of EARNING more than you SPEND ... and then our economy will bounce back.

Anyway, back to my point ... AMD isn't the only major US company that sold a large part of itself to another country this year. That's just the sorry state of the US economy. It doesn't mean AMD can't make a serious comeback. In fact, now that they have all that money from foreign investors they might have the capital needed to make a big push in both R&D and marketing.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens in 2008.

 

AMD Spider Platform: when you want to be second best.

 

I would say the little snippet there in the title is an understatement. Intel is more than beating AMD as this point, more like AMD getting smashed.

 

So that's why all the stores are sold out until after Christmas.

 

now that was funny...
Intel is really smashing AMD. Intel keeps coming up with better and better (and cheaper)products, giving AMD no chance to recover! AMD has to come up some serious invention or they are done (a quad-core, less HEAT, cheap, good-on-battery processor) people are really looking up to them.

 

Not to mention they're heavily in debt from buying ATI.

 

I am about to get a hold of some Phenom X4's for testing.

We will see the OC potential and performance compared to the Intel quads.

And the Zalman ZM-NC2000 will definitely be great for those looking for the best possible cooler for 17" gaming notebooks.... the previous NC1000 was already great, but the new one will make it aesthetically better (with no overhangs)

 

Or if Bulldog/Fusion can offer much better performance than Intel's competitors. AMD hasn't been winning by offering the cheaper chips these days, and really can't afford to keep with cheaper chips forever. They need better performance than Intel so they can charge more while still selling and make some money.

 

Well, looking at benchmarks and reviews by other tech sites, Phenom can almost catch Kentsfield. But not quite. Considering that the $320 X4 9700 cannot beat the $260 Q6600 that is about to be phased out for a faster, cheaper, cooler, more efficient, and more overclockable processor. Ohhhhh boy, AMD is doing well.

 

The hidden gem in here - the state of California managed to pay $650 thousand for one thousand $400 computers? Only the US government...

 

Haha, you're right! Good find there. Wtf?

 

That probably includes service contracts and extended warranties and such, that probably added $250 to the cost of every notebook.

Though, according to Softpedia, its at least 1300 units that the Fresno school district purchased, which seems reasonable as well.

 

Sorry, but there's just about no chance of AMD going under. Intel simply will not let it happen. The second AMD goes out of business, Intel is a major antitrust case waiting to happen.

 

I agree in a way. I prefer Intel, but I don't want AMD to die. AMD dying will mean Intel's going to be a monopoly, and I don't want any more Pentiums .

 

Actually, its pretty evident that Intel doesn't want AMD to go out of business. Just look at Penryn: Intel started producing the chips nearly a year ago now (though in small quantities) and could have easily had them out for a Spring release, as opposed to a Fall release, with a full rollout with coming in summer, instead of being Jan 08, but they've really been holding back on the latest releases while waiting for AMD to catch up. Not that it helped, since even with Phenom AMD is quite far behind the Conroe and Kentsfield chips, but they are at least kinda sorta almost competitive in a half hearted sort of way, which is an improvement over being completely out of the running. Of course, the gap will increase even more once Penryn is out, but just how much remains to be seen. I actually think Penryn's true competitor as far as pricing and performance goes will be the Conroe and Kentsfield chips, not Phenom, since Phenom will be more expensive and have lower performance.

 

How thoughtful of Intel ...

Seriously, I'm buying an NC2000 cooler. My notebook doesn't run that hot, but a few degrees would be appreciated since I do not plan on moving it around much anymore. It will probably be on 24/7 so I'd appreciate a slightly cooler HDD.

 

Why?

Monopolies are not illegal; anticompetitive practices are illegal, and AMD has already brought cases against Intel in Korea and the EU. AMD's lack of products worth buying and bad acquistion choices are not Intel's fault, unless Intel is found to have abused its power to cause AMD to buy ATI or AMD to have products worse than Intel's.

 

I almost feel dirty saying this, but..... My next processor will probably be AMD for the shear fact that I don't want progress to slow down on CPUs and I want them to stick around. I'll admit, my core duo laptop is faster than my a64 desktop, but we'd never be where we are without AMD. Sacrificing a little performance to keep the overall level of performance (in the future) up, is worth it to me.

 

A noble cause, to be sure, but if I have to compromise on performance to be noble, I'll go with the faster processor. That, and I'm a complete Intel fanboy, so I'd shoot myself before buying an AMD processor anyways.

 

Quoted for truth.

And on a different note, I really like the design of the Zalman cooler.