AnandTech puts Intel's new Ivy Bridge through its paces. "While it's not enough to tempt existing Sandy Bridge owners, if you missed the upgrade last year then Ivy Bridge is solid ground to walk on. It's still the best performing client x86 architecture on the planet and a little to a lot better than its predecessor depending on how much you use the on-die GPU."
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Member since:2007-07-06
I guess I'm on the same boat. My trusty K7@900 (w/256 MB of RAM) never feels short of power, unless I intend to transcode some videos.
Heck, coupled with a GeForce MX 4000 I've even played HL2!
Music/Movies/TV/Programming/Games it does it all. I'll surely shed a few tears when(if!) this baby goes down.
Member since:2007-09-03
Member since:2007-11-11
This is something I've argued with the gear heads, that for the vast majority PCs have been "good enough" since they went dual cores. I haven't seen any improvements on the desktop when i went from quad to hexacore and even with both boys loving to game (one on a hexacore, the other my quad handed down) frankly even the games rarely stress more than 2 cores, heck i found that for my mobile needs that a Bobcat dual core is more than plenty for watching HD videos, surfing, webmail, etc.
The problem is the reason why we see Microsoft killing themselves to get onto cell phones and tablets, because PCs simply haven't had a "killer app" that can take advantage of the frankly insane power both Intel and AMD have given us. I will give Intel credit though, after AMD's previous CEO backed the company into a corner (Killing Thuban, killing the next version of Brazos called Krishna) and bet the farm on Bulldozer which turned out to be not even as good as Thuban Intel could have just sat back and reaped the profits so the fact that they are still sticking to their tick tock strategy, even though it will cost a ton of money, just shows they aren't willing to rest on their laurels.
I just hope AMD can come up with something better because as we have seen a monopoly is NEVER a good thing. I have to wonder if Intel would help out AMD to keep from ending up in that situation, as Microsoft did with Apple in the 90s? After all they can afford to give up the low end market (which is tight margins anyway) to AMD a lot easier than they can afford a bunch of governments watching them like hawks.
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
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2005-07-06
Still comfortable with Core 2 Quad Q9550. Not worth spending just to get maybe 30% better performance. I'll wait and see if Haswell is any good, and hopefully they'll release some 8-cores.