ATI Catalyst 8.1 Nvidia: A complete face lift for the entry level Intel results for Q4 2007

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ATI Catalyst 8.1   Posted on 16/01/2008 at 23:19 by Nicolas

	ATI has just published Catalyst 8.1 for 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows XP & Vista. For once, there will be no performance improvements for these drivers destined for all of this company's GPUs/IGPs supporting DirectX 9.0. Instead there will only be the fixes for bugs and support for a function called MultiView which authorizes graphic acceleration in multi-screen mode with several graphic cards. Games that should benefit from this update in Windows Vista are Bioshock : Half-Life 2: Episode 2 with the Radeon HD 3800 in CrossFire ; F.E.A.R. in 2048x1536 with AA activated ; Oblivion when switching to the Windows desktop or with maximum details with Crossfire configurations ; and World In Conflict in 1280x768 with AF in 16x. In Windows XP, it affects Call of Juarez, Stalker, TimeShift, Enemy Territories: Quake Wars v1.2, TianJi and World of Warcraft (with Apple 30" screens). You can download it here!

Nvidia: A complete face lift for the entry level   Posted on 16/01/2008 at 13:47 by Nicolas - source: VR-Zone

	February 14th, Nvidia should launch a new version of the GeForce 8400 GS equipped with a G98 engraved in 65nm. This will replace the previous G86 which was still engraved in 80nm making it too expensive compared to the RV620 which is engraved in 55nm. Whatever its frequencies, performances should be limited by a bus with a width of 64 bits. Moreover, it should not be powerful enough to play recent games even if we were to accept certain compromises. In our opinion, the main reason to opt for a GeForce 8400 GS is that it offers complete h.264 and partial VC-1 decoding for a low price. The new version should be of even greater interest in this area because there will be a Purevideo 3 engine allowing better VC-1 decoding. The only thing is that buyers may have some difficulty in differentiating between the two cards if they have the same name. As for the GeForce 7300 GT, 7600 GS and 7600 GT, they are at the end of their product lives and the last shipments are planned for March 28th.

Intel results for Q4 2007   Posted on 16/01/2008 at 00:01 by Nicolas

	Intel has announced its 2007 fourth quarter financial results as well as those for the whole year. The below figures are in billions of dollars. The end of the year was excellent for the company. We can see that profits grew much more than revenue represented by a 6.9 point increase for the quarter to 58.1%. The number of processors delivered has never been so great, unit production costs have lowered and the average sales price has remained stable. Moreover, Intel declares having settled some legal matters resulting in a positive financial impact. The entire year was also very good and with profits of $7 billion, Intel can look serenely to the future. Sales of its CPUs and chipsets have never been so good and gross profits were 58% while the transition to 45nm is going rather well despite the delay of certain Penryns. Now we will just have to see what happens with the European Commission’s investigation into possible abuses of dominant position by the Californian company and if financial results in 2008 will be even better give that it has a monopoly in the high end market.