Chipsets

Intel said its employees are safe and the chipmaker has resumed operations at its assembly test facility in Chengdu while it analyzes inventory.

The facility handles CPUs (central processing units) and chipsets.

"Intel is currently analyzing its current inventory, work in process, and other factors to ensure that the company can best serve its customers," according to Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, responding to an e-mail query.

A report had cited three Intel chipsets, the G31, G33, and 945GC, as being affected and subject to price increases. Mulloy said prices have not been raised by Intel.

Chengdu is 55 … Read more

Forget Intel and AMD for a minute. The two largest PC circuit board makers, Asus and Gigabyte, are at it.

PC motherboard maker spats have typically taken place below the radar. But a recent round of particularly sharp recriminations have become very visible because they go to the core of a new trend in marketing: How green is your motherboard?

This is what happened: Gigabyte, according to reports, said in Taipei earlier this month that Asus' EPU (energy processing unit)-based motherboards do not achieve the power savings that Asus claims.

In short, Asus claims power savings of just over 80 percent, … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices filed more legal papers this week alleging monopolistic practices by Intel. Some of AMD's allegations involving PC makers are the most intriguing. Even when large blocks of text have been redacted. Moreover, the stridency of the language approaches that of the attacks from Nvidia's CEO in previous weeks.

AMD in June 2005 filed an antitrust complaint against Intel claiming that Intel illegally maintained a monopoly in the market for microprocessors.

As part of the ongoing legal process, AMD filed a response (to Intel's Preliminary Pretrial Statement) on Thursday with the U.S. district court … Read more

Fast silicon is hitting a wall in game PCs, according to Alienware, which is looking for ways to boost game PC performance.

Parent company Dell vowed on Tuesday to pour more resources into the game PC unit and invest in "product development, design, and engineering."

Alienware's Marc Diana believes optimizing systems for the 64-bit world would allow game PCs to make big strides in performance. In effect, today's 32-bit environments are putting a crimp on PC-based gaming.

"So many people are caught up in this hardware race. Dual-core, quad-core this and that," said Diana, … Read more

Intel's Atom processor was prominently displayed in systems at a conference in Japan. The chipmaker's next-generation X4500 graphics also made an appearance.

Small systems and circuit boards using the Atom processor appeared on the Web site PC Watch, which highlighted designs at a "Systems Expo" in Tokyo.

A host of small devices with the Atom processor are due in June. The 45-nanometer chip will compete with processors from Via Technologies such as the C7 and upcoming Isaiah processor.

Small PCs and computer systems using the low-power Atom processor included a small embedded computer from Japan-based Dux, … Read more

UPDATE: Toshiba is expected to release a notebook PC this year that uses a chip based on the Cell processor, the same chip used in Sony's PlayStation.

The Toshiba Qosmio G40 notebook will sport a SpursEngine SE1000 chip based on the Cell Broadband Engine, which is also used in the Sony PlayStation 3.

The Cell Broadband Engine is a multi-core chip architecture jointly developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba. It is derived from IBM's Power Architecture, which was once used in Apple notebooks and desktops. Today, IBM uses the Cell processor in a line of blade servers.

Samples … Read more

Intel's long-awaited DirectX-10 graphics update for its chipsets is available.

DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling multimedia tasks in Microsoft-based environments, especially those tasks related to games and video. DirectX-10 support was mentioned by Intel as far back as 2006 when its popular 965 chipset was introduced.

The new Windows Vista driver enables DirectX10 functionality for Intel GM965 and G35 Express chipset based platforms. The GM965 uses the X3100 Intel graphics engine, while the G35 uses the X3500.

The update is available here.

"We have been able to add features to products using … Read more

The first dual G4 PowerPC systems from Apple were all heat sinks and fans. In this tradition, a rarefied Intel Skulltrail-based powerhouse from Thirdwave uses two top-line quad-core QX9775 processors and a bevy of Nvidia GPUs--and plenty of fans.

The system (photo) in fact looks more like a stand-alone power supply box than a computer. Of course heat dissipation is paramount in enthusiast screamers.

The original Apple dual G4 systems (circa 2001) were a testimony to heat dissipation--and Rube Goldberg. So much heat that the system could quite literally raise the temperature in a small room. (Note: I can testify … Read more

Update: Ultrasmall desktops aren't new, but an Intel design unearthed in Asia means there may be a lot more on the way.

Ultracompact desktop PC design is tapping into two powerful forces: Low cost and eco friendliness. Tiny Dell desktops (photo) and Atom-powered Nettops are hints of things to come. And Intel motherboards disclosed in Asia may fuel this trend. Hardware site HKEPC has posted photos of two new Intel Mini-ITX-based motherboards, "Eklo" and "Fly Creek."

(Correction: the motherboard is called Eklo not "Elko" as previously reported.)

The original Mini-ITX board design was … Read more