« short » Quad SLI in May 40% Conroe early 2007 ? NVIDIA MCP61 to replace the 6100 Here comes the 7900 Go i975X & Conroe compatibility? Perpendicular recording for Cheetahs

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« short » Quad SLI in May   Posted on 18/04/2006 at 19:46 by Marc - source: ComputerBase / The Inquirer

	If the first Quad SLI graphic card, the 7900 GX2 is rather long and in theory only reserved to OEMs, NVIDIA would be planning on releasing in May the Quad SLI « for everyone ». So, the father of the GeForce could announce at E3 the GeForce 7950 GTX 2. They will be shorter and intended to retail. This will facilitate their integration. Like the 7900 GX2, they will be equipped with two GeForce 7900 chips. Each goes along with 512 MB of GDDR3 and connects to a second 7900 GX2 via two SLI bridges. Several German shops already sell 7900 GX2 at prices varying from 799 € and 928 € (ouch!).

40% Conroe early 2007 ?   Posted on 18/04/2006 at 19:23 by Marc

	Intel's last roadmap gave indications on market forecast estimated by Intel within its own product line for OEMs performance & mainstream segment. According to the Santa Clara giant, during the second quarter 2006, the Pentium 4 will represent 64% of market sales compared to 36% for the Pentium D (805 for most of them) From now till early 2007, the Pentium 4 share will be strongly reduced to 15% estimates Intel. The Pentium D will reach 45% and the Conroe 40%. Even if OEMs are rather timid for new technologies, these forecasts might not seem very optimistic: once the Conroe will be there what will be the interest to continue to sell Pentium D processors?

NVIDIA MCP61 to replace the 6100   Posted on 18/04/2006 at 19:06 by Marc - source: DailyTech

	NVIDIA will progressively replace the GeForce 6100 (NVIDIA's integrated graphics chipset for AMD's platform) by a new chip named MCP61 that will be out in August. This new chipset will only use a single 90 nm chip, even though the GeForce 6100 uses an IPG coupled to an MCP (Northbridge / Southbridge). Three versions are announced: MCP61P, MCP61S and MCP61V. The P version will feature four SATA as compared to 2 for the S/V and a Gigabit network controller instead of 10/100 for the MCP61S/V. The P version will support a PCI Express x16 slot for an additional graphic card compared to a x8 for the S and none for the V. Finally, if the S & V will only have one VGA output, the P is capable of outputting SVDO signal (the same as Intel's chipsets) that can be accepted by an additional chip in order to convert and send it to a TV, DVI output or even HDMI. If the graphic engine specifications that will be included to the MCP61 are still unknown, we fell that it won't be that far from the GeForce 6100. It will however lack the PureVideo engine, so the GeForce 6150 which includes it will continue to be sold by NVIDIA for « Media PC ».

Here comes the 7900 Go   Posted on 18/04/2006 at 18:37 by Marc

	One month after its release and despite low desktop cards availability, here comes the GeForce 7900 Go. Two versions will be available, the GeForce Go 7900 GTX and GeForce Go 7900 GS. Additionally to 90 nm fabrication process, the Go 7900 GTX has higher GPU/DDR frequencies, 400/550 as compared to 500/600, than the 7800 GTX. The GeForce Go 7900 GS is lower clocked at 375/500 MHz and has less pixel pipelines and vertex shaders, 20 and 7 as compared to 24 and 8. Here are its theoretical performance figures compared to the GeForce Go 7800 and desktop GeForce 7800 / 7900:

i975X & Conroe compatibility?   Posted on 18/04/2006 at 13:26 by Marc

	Released at the end of last year, the Intel 975X chipset is the heart of Intel's high end platform. This situation will continue with the release of the Conroe but also with the Kentsfield (quad core) as this chipset is compatible. Compatible chipset doesn't however mean compatible motherboard. A couple of modifications will apparently be required for current motherboards. Interrogated about the Conroe support by current i975X motherboards, ABIT, Gigabyte and MSI confirmed us that Intel's new processor will only be supported with a new revision of the PCB (Gigabyte) or new products (ABIT, MSI). Products availability will be in May for ABIT, early June for MSI and May/June for Gigabyte. The last unknown is ASUSTeK's P5WD2-E Premium. This motherboard is currently under tests to find out whether if it is compatible or not with the Conroe's current revision.

Perpendicular recording for Cheetahs   Posted on 18/04/2006 at 11:04 by Marc

	According to TG Daily, Seagate will announce this week the first 3"1/2 drive using perpendicular recording technology. What is surprising about this announcement is that this is a Cheetah SCSI 15,000 Rpm drive. The 15K.5 will reach a maximum of 300 GB via three platters (this is twice as much as the 15K.4) and sequential transfer rate will increase from the 58-96 MB /s interval to 73-125 MB /s. Access time is still at 3.5ms reading and 4 ms writing. The 15K.5 is already shipped to OEMs and will be available from June via standard distribution channels. It will come, like its predecessor, in Fibre Channel, SAS and Ultra320 SCSI versions.