TriedIT - Software and Hardware News and Reviews

HotHardware reviews Dell’s latest top-of-the-line gaming system:

The XPS 710 H2C Edition is billed as a top-of-the-line ultra-performance machine built with the most hardcore of gamers in mind, a niche that Alienware is very familiar with. Not only does the XPS 710 H2C hold the distinction of being Dell’s first non-limited edition factory overclocked computer, it also uses Dell’s first in-house liquid cooling system to keep it’s quad-core power plant cool. The XPS 710 H2C is the most heavily performance-specified XPS system yet, with an Intel Core 2 QX6700 processor, dual GeForce 8800 GTXs, 4 GB of RAM and two Western Digital Raptors in a RAID 0 array, as standard equipment. We recently got our hands on one and we’ve been putting it through its paces, as it ripped through the benchmarks in our labs.

At $5035, you’re going to spend a lot for this rig just to have one of the highest performance gaming PCs out there. The benchmarks are great, as you would expect, but I won’t be buying one… ever.

Foresight Linux brings yet another new take on package management to Linux. It uses’s rPath’s Conary system as its package management and administration interface. It aims to be an easy to use desktop system featuring the latest GNOME-based technologies.

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AMD’s latest top-of-the-line Athlon 64 x2 CPU has been released and Hot Hardware has reviewed and benchmarked it. Despite it being the newest CPU released, it still doesn’t match Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6700 in performance.

Blogcritics has a short (and somewhat weak) review of Yellow Dog Linux 5 for the PS3.

The PS3 is designed to run Linux, so as developers start to take more advantage of the PS3’s capabilities no doubt we’ll see some cool stuff coming out running on Linux for the PS3. For a start, it looks like Yellow Dog Linux isn’t bad, although it currently doesn’t support the PS3’s built-in wireless card. Hopefully Sony will release specs or a driver for it soon. I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of developments are ahead for Linux on the PS3 (as well as a price drop for the PS3!) Maybe I’ll end up getting one someday.

Tom’s Hardware goes a different route with their latest review, attempting to build the best budget PC:

This shootout is a bit different from what we usually do. It’s not about the most sophisticated systems or about reaching new clock speed records. This article is for those who cannot or will not spend $300 for a processor, overclocked memory and an über graphics card. The reasons why people don’t max out their credit cards or go hungry for a week to buy their dream machine vary, of course, but the good news is that $300 will buy you some decent PC gear these days.

Read on for what their best budget PC combination is. I am looking to build my mother a new PC soon, but I’ve been seriously contemplating getting her a Mac Mini or an iMac.

Check out this little beaut. A 0.85 inches in size and 2 grams in weight, this tiny 8GB Toshiba hard disk is the smallest hard disk in the world. It’s not out yet, but I’m sure we’ll see higher capacities and even smaller sizes in a short time. We could have iPod nanos with 80GB on them in a few years, or Smart Phones that can double as external disks. There will be no need to have memory cards in your camera, just put one of these tiny disks in there and you’ll have way more storage. Of course, power consumption might be an issue, but since this disk isn’t even out yet, I’ll just keep imagining the uses for it in all the devices I own that use memory cards or USB memory sticks that aren’t even close to 8GB.

Two new pre-release versions of popular Linux distributions have come out. openSUSE 10.3 Alpha 1 contains some significant changes from 10.2 including an updated kernel, KDE 3.5.6 and the entire OS being compiled with stack overflow protection to help guard against buffer overflows. Feisty Fawn Herd 4 is now available at the Ubuntu download site. The main features of Feisty Fawn over Edgy are improved hardware support, updated GNOME, a migration assistant, easy installation of multimedia codecs, better support for virtualization software in the kernel, and an improved Help Center.

I plan on reviewing the final releases of these two Linux distributions when they arrive.

According to AppleInsider, Apple soon plans to release a sub-notebook version of the MacBook:

This new tiny MacBook, people familiar with the project say, remains in development ahead of its target launch date around the time WWDC rolls around mid-year. It will be both lighter and more compact than any other Mac portable Apple has put forth in recent years, bundling a display of similarly smaller proportions.

Also setting the new model aside from its existing counterparts, those same people say, may be the conspicuous absence of an optical disc drive. Although Apple’s original plans for the notebook called for its inclusion, reports are that the daunting ergonomics have recently driven company engineers to make a concession, forming yet another parallel between the new notebook and the defunct PowerBook 2400.

At the same time, the new MacBook model is expected to introduce some features not yet available with Apple’s existing notebook offerings, such as onboard NAND flash. Plans reportedly call for the notebook to be the first of the company’s MacBook offerings to utilize the solid-state memory in order to improve power efficiency and facilitate near instantaneous boot times. This feature, however, had not been frozen upon last check.

I’m interested to see what the specs and price point of this MacBook will be. I’m not sure if I would get one since I do not travel much and the trips I have taken my MacBook Pro on I didn’t feel hindered by the size or weight of the laptop. That being said, the article goes on to point out that it would likely be more successful in Japan where the Japanese prefer more compact and lighter computing devices. Perhaps it will be on par, size-wise, with the Sony Vaio TX series of laptops. Hopefully at a much cheaper price.

An in depth review and comparison of seven GeForce 8800 series cards can be found at The Tech Report today. If you’re in the market for a new high-end graphics card, this is the place to go to help you decide which of the ones out there you should get.

The world’s first 1200 watt power supply has been launched and it is Thermaltake’s Toughpower 1200W. This is one beefy power supply. It should be able to deliver all the power necessary to high-end quad core systems with multiple video cards in an SLI configuration.

This makes my Antec NEO HE 550W power supply look weak in comparison. By the way, I highly recommend Antec’s NEO HE 550 power supply to anyone looking for a solid high performance power supply. I use it on my Athlon x2 64 system with my BFG GeForce 7800GT 256MB card and it has performed flawlessly.