Core 2 Extreme CPUs for laptops? Crysis and DX10 : benchmarks? Official ForceWare for Windows Vista Core 2 price reduction 04/22/07

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Core 2 Extreme CPUs for laptops?   Posted on 30/01/2007 at 20:19 by Nicolas

	Intel would be planning on introducing in a couple of months two new processors for laptops based on the Merom core. The Core 2 Extreme X7800, scheduled to be released during the second or the third quarter 2007, is quite similar to the current Core 2 Duos and singles out thanks to the frequency of 2,6GHz instead of 2,33Ghz for the T7600, unlocked multiplying coefficient, FSB of 800 MHz and Socket P packaging (the last two belong to the specifications of the Santa Rosa platform, fourth generation of Centrino). The price announced of $795 per unit for 1000 CPUs ordered, only reserves it for high end laptops. During the fourth quarter, the Core 2 Extreme X7900 clocked at 2.8 GHz should be released at an unknown price. If we are quite sceptical about the point of such CPUs, there is no doubt that laptop manufacturers producing "Desktop Remplacement" computers will be really pleased to sell laptops which specifications will be as high as their prices….

Crysis and DX10 : benchmarks?   Posted on 30/01/2007 at 16:02 by Damien

	Hardspell has published the first benchmarks of Crysis with DirectX 10 and the Forceware 100.30 that were installed on demonstration computers at CES. Even if the figures published aren't really encouraging and correspond to our information, they need to be taken with circumspection as they come from the beta version of a graphic engine that exploits a GPU using the beta version of the drivers. Indeed, the current DirectX 10 drivers (the 100.30 were released mid-December) aren't yet optimised because of the lack of games capable of using them. Their first objective is to bring (or at least try to) bring a stable support of the new API to developers. In other words, these figures aren't really meaningful even if they make it possible to set the erroneous figures circulating about the performances of Crysis in DirectX 10 right. Crytek, Microsoft and Nvidia have used the confusion surrounding the demonstration of Crysis and let everyone believe that it was the DirectX 10 version instead of the DirectX 9 that was used most of the time.

Official ForceWare for Windows Vista   Posted on 30/01/2007 at 15:41 by Damien

	Nvidia has also released new drivers for Windows Vista, the 100.54. These drivers, presented as beta (and not WHQL), are the first one to officially support the GeForce 8 with this OS. They bring the support of DirectX 9 and OpenGL to the GeForce 6, 7 and 8 and of DirectX 10 for the GeForce 8. This support is initially only present to guarantee a correct functioning of the new API and performances will progress later. Unlike ATI, Nvidia doesn’t officially support SLI with Windows Vista but has added an option in the advanced command list that can activate it without guarantying the result. NVIDIA indicates that a driver officially supporting SLI with the GeForce 8 will be released tomorrow. The support of SLI will not be effective in DirectX 10 and we will have to wait a little bit more for this option. To download the driver, go to this page for the 32 bit version and this one for the 64 bit.

Core 2 price reduction 04/22/07   Posted on 30/01/2007 at 11:57 by Marc - source: HKEPC

	The 22nd of April will finally be the date of the first price reduction of the Core2 product range. We remind you that it will be quite consequent with for example a reduction of 40% for the E6700, but also 29% for the E6600 or 30% for the E4300. The E6400 and E6300 will be replaced by new cheaper versions with 4 MB of cache. Today, we also found out Intel's prices for the other declinations of the Core architecture: the Pentium E 2000 and Celeron 400. As you can see, the Pentium E will really democratise the dual core with an entry ticket at $74.