Mark Fox's Weblog

While it is possible or even likely that Psystar’s Open Computer is a hoax or scam, that fact remains that there is both an active hobbyist community that has developed the means to install Mac OS X on generic PC hardware and that this ability fills a gap in Apple’s hardware line.
The initial interest in the Open Computer (initially the OpenMac) stemmed from the fact that it’s specs were considerable more powerful than the closest Apple equivalent for much less money. Macworld noted:

The basic $399 configuration for the Open Computer is a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Processor; 2GB of DDR2 667 memory; Integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics; 20x DVD+/-R SATA drive that is Lightscribe-capable; and 4 rear USB Ports. Apple’s cheapest desktop computer is the Mac mini, which comes with a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 1GB memory; and an 80GB hard drive. That configuration costs $599.

So the Open Computer clearly has the Mac mini beat on price and capability. With a few upgrades it could fill a gap in Apple’s hardware lineup – the lack of a mid-range expandable computer positioned between the low-end non-expandable Mac mini and iMac and the high-end, expandable Mac Pro.
To show the means by which a generic PC could fill this gap, Rob Griffiths of Macworld built a Quad Core PC with 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA 8800GT video card and 500 GB hard drive for $982. With a EULA breaking Mac OS X install this “Frankenmac” was on par with a much more expensive Mac Pro and beat it on gaming benchmarks before being changed to Windows gaming system.
Overall the Psystar saga shows that Macs are expensive, there is a hole in Apple’s hardware line-up and people suddenly like highly restrictive EULAs provided they are from Apple.

A year and a half after it was rebranded as the Games for Windows: The Official Magazine, the former Computer Gaming World magazine is closing and its editorial staff moving to the 1up.com network to expand its PC gaming coverage. In his blog editor Jeff Green states he hopes that the move to a quicker online format will lead to improvements: “some ways, this change will both liberate and, uh, empower (sorry, I was trying to avoid that word) us to drill down into certain key aspects of PC gaming in the 21st century--modding, patches, MMO updates--that were always challenging for us in print.”

This shift may be for naught however. The magazine’s owner, Ziff Davis filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy last month listing assets of $313 million and liabilities of $500 million. Its main publication is PC Magazine with has been looking rather thin for years now.

Intel will be releasing its first set of 45-nanometer CPUs on Monday to further take command of the dual and quad-core CPU market. eWeek.com states that Intel will be focusing on the server market with tomorrow’s release:

Nehalem microarchitecture in late 2008. In addition to supporting up to 8 cores plus HyperThreading these chips will use a faster on-chip memory controller and a new bus interconnect that will require a new socket design. Intel is also expected to focus on using DDR3 rather than DDR2 memory for Nehalem based systems.

Than after the Nehalem comes a 32nm shrink in 2009 and Sandy Bridge in 2010 as Intel continues its tick-tock approach of new designs and refinements, one every year with a complete cycle every two years.

Moving to new manufacturing processes can really pay off for CPU vendors:
Earlier this week Intel lifted the non-disclosure agreement on the details (except for price) of its upcoming Core 2 Extreme QX9650 CPU, the first 45nm updated Core 2 architecture CPU. Reviewers are finding that in addition to a slight speed increase over existing quad-core Core 2 chips, the new chip is cooler, consumes less power and has more overclocking potential.

In the same week NVIDIA released its new GeForce 8800 GT GPU with a dramatically lower price and in most cases more speed than the year old 90nm based GeForce 8800 GTS. Priced at $200 to $250 the 65nm part out performs the more expensive $300 to $370 GeForce 8800 GTS cards because of a higher core and memory clock and more stream processors. Again the 45nm process leads to cooler chips than consume less power.

Finally it was revealed that Sony will be joining Microsoft in using 65nm CPUs in its game consoles when the 40 GB Playstation 3 due in the US in November uses a 65nm Cell chip. Like with the newer 65nm based Xbox 360 this will lower manufacturing costs and make the systems run cooler.

Ars Technica has details from the Intel Developer Forum where Intel released details of its next two generations of 45nm processor designs, codenamed Penryn and Nehalem.
Penryn is the 45nm shrink and design refresh of the current Core 2 architecture which will offer a 20 percent performance boost over the current 65nm products within the same thermal envelope. It will be available to the server market in November.

Nehalem is a new architecture that includes up to eight cores each handling two threads, an on-die memory controller, and direct connection among processors, the latter two items replicating what AMD does with its dual core Athlons. Later in 2009 Intel plans to shrink the Nehalem to 32nm.

With its July price cuts Intel lists both the 2.4 GHz quad-core Q6600 CPU and 3.0 GHz dual-core E3850 CPU for $266 in 1,000 unit trays (PDF) while the 2.4 GHz dual-core E6600 CPU lists for $244. With the Q6600 effectively being two E6600 dies in the same CPU package but slower in clock-speed than the E3850 users face several questions: Do four versus two cores help at all, and if so is it better to help slower cores than two faster ones?

Jeff Attwood looks at both questions, using reviews from Tech Report and Xbit Labs he concludes that more cores help in only some situations:
The results seem encouraging, until you take a look at the applications that benefit from quad-core-- the ones that aren't purely synthetic benchmarks are rendering, encoding, or scientific applications . It's the same old story. Beyond encoding and rendering tasks which are naturally amenable to parallelization, the task manager CPU graphs tell the sad tale of software that simply isn't written to exploit more than two CPUs.

Furthermore the slower Q6600 cannot make up for the E3850’s speed with more cores;

It's mostly what I would expect-- only rendering and encoding tasks exploit parallelism enough to overcome the 25% speed deficit between the dual and quad core CPUs. Outside of that specific niche, performance will actually suffer for most general purpose software if you choose a slower quad-core over a faster dual-core.

ExtremeTech.com looks further at the question of two versus four cores, comparing the 3.0 GHz dual-core E3850 to a 3.0 GHz quad-core QX6850 CPU and finds that for gaming there is little current advantage to use a quad-core CPU.

With Intel’s drastic price cuts earlier this week the newly introduced dual-core 3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 with 1333 MHz FSB has the same $266 list price as the quad-core 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 1066 MHz FSB.

In a set of benchmarks AnandTech looks at the CPU tech question of the summer: which is better for playing games and running applications?
The answer: backed by a GeForce 8800 GTX the faster dual-core E6850 out-performs the quad core in many games but by at most 13.7% but is handily defeated in multi-threaded applications such as Encoding and 3D manipulation. Overall unless you are sure that your key application or game is much faster with a higher frequency dual-core chip, the quad-core chip looks to be the winner.

This week Intel quietly upgraded its Core 2 Duo processor line by releasing the E6320, and E6420, which increase the L2, cache on the current E6300 and E6400 from 2 MB to 4 MB. Prices of the new chips match their 2 MB L2 cache counterparts.

In Q3 Intel is expected to update the Core 2 line with 1333 MHz front side buses and drastically cut prices of its quad-core chips with the low end being the 2.4 GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 at $266 per unit, the same price of fastest (3.0 GHz) dual core chip. No doubt there will be a lot of benchmarking done to determine under which circumstances one out performs the other.

Canadian computer store PC Canada lists the chips as being available on Monday, April 23rd at $15 more than their 2MB counterparts.

Graphics card manufacturers are starting to announce their line-up of cards based on Nvidia’s low end and mid-range Direct X 10 GPUs. The Register states that PNY has confirm they will start selling on April 17th the 8600 GTS based on the GeForce 8600 GT graphics chip with 256MB of GDDR 3 memory.

Similarly The Inquirer states that Asus has announced details of their 8600 GTS card. The EN8600 GTS/G/HTDP/256M card has 256MB of memory with clock speeds of 675MHz core and 1000MHz (DDR3) memory and a 128-bit memory interface and 32 stream processors.
By comparison the 8800 GTS has 320 or 640 MB of DDR3 memory at 800 MHz and a 500 MHz core. It however has a 320-bit memory interface and 96 stream processors and can process 24 billion texels per second.

DailyTech rounds up details of the 8600 and 8500 chips.

Got $6000 lying around? You can buy a used car or Dell’s new factory overclocked Intel multi-core XPS 710 H2C with Two Stage Hybrid liquid and thermoelectric Cooling System, two 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX cards, 4GB DDR2 and a 1000 watt power supply and be the hottest gamer on the block.

HotHardware reviews the system and while noting that some components such as the nForce 590 SLI based motherboard are older than others now available, it was very stable and has an Editor’s Choice “great combination of performance and value”.

While Blizzard is unveiling World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, an executive gave hints that both the StarCraft and Diablo franchises may see live again, the former before the tenth anniversary of its 1997 release.

The StarCraft: Brood War expansion set’s requirements.

• Windows 85 or NT 4.0
• Pentium 90
• 16 MB RAM
• 80 MB HD
• 2X CD-ROM
• Local Bus SVGA card
• DirectX soundcard
• 2 players – 14.4 Kbps modem
• 2-8 players IPX network or Battle.net

Much less than say, Company of Heroes' requirements, but possibly just as fun.

Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote unveiled both expected and surprising products while leaving out a few roumoured items. There was a refresh of the iPod, iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle and improvements to iTunes, but not widescreen video iPod. The iTunes Music Store became the iTunes Store as games and some movies were added. Also announced for a 2007 release was a media adapter to allow video to be streamed from a Mac or PC running iTunes to a television.

Bit-Tech.net reviews and dissembles a Dell XPS 700 computer to see if Dell’s new top of the line gaming PC has the performance power to make build your own obsolete. With a sporty aluminium case and user configurable blinking lights the PC meets the required bling factor and it massive cooling system keeps it near silent but its performance is held back by slow memory. There is also a high cost to upgrade common parts such a second video card for SLI gaming.

The XPS 700 desktop line has been problematic for Dell so far. As a result of delays associated with its cooling system the availability of the XPS 700 was pushed back so far that Dell has offered free upgrades to Intel Core 2 Duo chips for its earlier purchases. New purchases may have to wait months for their machines.

There have been questions about its chipset, which Dell says is the result of the system’s NVIDIA 590 chipset being misidentified by the commonly used nTune and CPU-Z utilities as older NVIDIA 570 units. There are also questions about the Sound Blaster X-Fi card that comes with the XPS 700 and its level of support for Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS sound compared to that of the retail Sound Blaster X-Fi package.

PC World has a quick review of a Core 2 Duo E6700 based XPS 700 system that uses the dual GPU NVIDIA 7950 GX2 graphics card combined with a 24-inch wide-screen 2407WFP LCD monitor. It also had 2 GB of RAM, and two 320GB drives in a striped RAID. Total cost $3985.

It’s unlikely that many people actually buy Microsoft Windows at retail stores instead of as part of a computer package, but does seem excessive that according to accidentally released information from Microsoft Canada Windows Vista will range in price from $259 Canadian for Windows Vista Home Basic to $499 for Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. Upgrade costs are $129 to $299.

By comparison $429 Canadian will buy you a Dell Dimension 1100 with a Celeron® D Processor, 512 MB of memory, a 80 GB hard disk, CD-RW and a licensed copy of Windows XP Home.

NY Times tech writer David Pogue basically apologizes for a statement he made in a previous column in he wrote:

now notes that Information Technology staff deals with much more than PC problems and those that do would love it if there was fewer problems with users’ computers so that they could have a greater focus on strategic initiatives.

As Intel’s newly announced Core 2 Duo CPU chips are starting to be listed at US online sites and retail stores, purchasers are reminded that Intel’s price sheet (PDF link) is for orders in batches of 1000 and that retailers can set their own prices. Like Xboxes or Furbies being the first on the block with one will cost you, if you can find it.

For example in its affordable gaming challenge ExtremeTech uses a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 priced at $316. Newegg lists the chip at $459 but is out of stock, Tigerdirect claims 7 - 10 Days availability with a price of $359.

Ziff Davis, which publishes a number of widely known computer magazines including PC Magazine and eWeek has announced that in association with Microsoft it is rebranding its Computer Gaming World (CGW) magazine into Games for Windows: The Official Magazine. The magazine will have a companion website that will be promoted and linked to by Microsoft.

While Editor in chief Jeff Green states that Microsoft will not have any editorial control over the new magazine, there is no word on how this will affect CGW’s recent move to include more investigative reports. Will we continue to read about the red-light districts in Second Life or World Of Warcraft?

Meanwhile all of Ziff Davis may be up for sale.

CPU maker AMD unveiled two big moves in its fight against rival Intel. First it announced the purchase of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies Inc. for $5.4-billion (U.S.) in cash-and-stock. AMD stated that it intends to keep ATI’s extensive R&D operations in Canada while hoping that it can do a better job of promoting ATI’s technical than its current management. Prior to the takeover ATI was trading at a discount relative to rival Nvidia Corp. that was seen to execute its business strategy better.

AMD hopes that it will be able to combine ATI’s graphics chips and motherboard chipsets with its processors - including possibly on the same die.

ExtremeTech notes that this merger leaves Nvidia as the last independent supplier of graphics chips for the PC, compared to it claims as many as 56 companies working on developing 3D graphics chips for the PC back in 1998.

On a more reactive note, AMD slashed the price of its Athlon 64, X2 and FX processor lines in an attempt to compete with Intel’s Core 2 Duo platform. One massive cut is the price of the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ falling from $696 to $301.