MEMORY ROADMAPS seen by the INQUIRER indicate that Samsung, at least, will be able to push ahead with DDR 400 in the fourth quarter of this year.

Samsung is already shipping samples of DDR-II at 512Mb, but in Q4 this year it will release 1.8 volt 667/533/400 DDR-II. In Q3 of next year, it will introduce a new die, the E-die, for these parts at x4, x8 and x16, and in densities of 256Mb.

A post coming from brokersjack from AMD Yahoo! board suggest that Dresden, a.k.a. Fab 30, is already mass producing a 3000+ rated Clawhammer for release to public before Christmas. The post also states a supposed name of Athlon ST for the said chip.

Just got word from Crow @ Darkcrow.co.kr that he's snagged photographs of the ATI Radeon 9700/9000 from the following manufactures: Sapphire, Hightech, Supergrace, Wistron, FIC, C.P.Tech, GigaByte and check out this cool screenshot of Lung Hwa ATI Radeon 9700:

Spotted an interesting news post here at www.Vr-Zone.com: Mr Kwok Yuen Ho, the CEO and Chairman of ATi Technologies has given a speech today during the press announcement and presentation of the Radeon 9000 and 9700. Here are some of the interesting highlights during the Q&A session: Based on the Radeon 9700 technology with parallel connection of up to 256, ATi is currently examining the possibility of having Dual Radeon 9700 VPUs on a card. Also Quad display outputs is possible with such card...

Check out this message posted on Ace's Hardware - general message board.

Best Buy on ATI 9700:

Secret high level [H] operatives planted inside the Best Buy organization have returned the following in formation.

ATI 9700 with 128 MB RAM
*BB SKU: 4743228
$399 retail price
BB gets it from manufacturer for $311
They are going to have them for pre-sale 8/5 till 8/24.
It will be in stock on the 15th of September and this info was last updated on the 30th of July."

Trident claims that they have a DirectX 8.1 GPU that can deliver 80% of the performance of a GeForce4 Ti 4600 for less than $100. Is Trident legit or are we just getting a dose of 3D rendered smoke and mirrors? Read on to learn about the technology behind Trident's XP4 @ Anandtech. Related link: Trident Microsystems

Soyo has updated their website with info on their upcoming P4X400 DRAGON Ultra motherboard. The P4X400 DRAGON Ultra supports the VIA P4X400 chipset, 400/533 FSB, DDR400 memory and AGP 8X.



Update: VR-Zone has a review up on the new VIA P4PB400 board based on the VIA P4X400 chipset and officially supports AGP8X, USB2.0 and comes with the new 8X V-Link Hub architecture. They have compared its performance against the SiS648, Intel 850E, Intel 845G as well as the VIA P4X333. Since it's based on the same technology this review might be interesting for you.

ReactorCritical reports that @ one of the recent conferences, Nvidia`s CEO, Jen-Hsen Huang, told analysts that the upcoming graphics processor code-named NV30 is not yet taped-out. Most of the industry observers started at once claim that NV30 will be late as it is not ready. ReactorCritical decided to ask their sources at the company about what is happening and, in fact, they told some hot`n`juicy details about the current condition of NV30 and its architecture. They even were kind enough to whisper them some performance estimates.

At last it's there: PC users can now also enjoy the iPod since Apple started developing a special edition of the iPod for Windows available in 5, 10 and 20 Gigabyte versions. Good news for the millions of Windows users who own PCs with built-in FireWire (also known as i.LINK and IEEE1394): In response to insistent demand from PC users, the world?s best MP3 player now does Windows. iPod fully integrated with the award-winning PC media player ? MUSICMATCH Jukebox Plus?. So every song you add or playlist you create will automatically transfer to your iPod.

The most interesting thing in the latest chipset roadie from VIA is the P4X800, intended to support 400/533MHz front side buses (FSBs) and 'beyond'.

This chipset is supposed to sample in the second half of this year, support DDR-II ECC, eight times v-link, AGP 8X and below, but won't offically be available until the first half of next year ? and aimed at the high performance PC market.

Just got word from MyHard.com that they have the latest Info and screenshots of the following Creative products:

Creative Inspire 2.1 2800 speakers
Creative Webcam Proex USB
Creative Inspire 5.1 5500 speakers
Creative Inspire 2.1 2700 Flat panel speakers

We just got this from Anonymous. Got to say great work. Take a look @ this Secret Intel Pentium 4 Roadmap! Hehe...



Hit Read More for more info on Intel's 845GE and 845PE chipsets / motherboards.

We have reported on the Bitboys Glaze3D chipset back in December in which a Finnish IT print publication called Micro PC claimed to have information on Bitboys developments. Even back in December Juha Taipale, general manager at Bitboys told Micro PC that they had silicon in production. Now it seems that Bitboys were showing their hardware - which may even be called Avalanche 3D - at Assembly 2002 a 3D demo scene party in Helsinki Finland. Bitboys is a finish company by the way.

Just got word that danish website Retel.dk have posted the first review of a ATI Radeon 9700 which was tested against the following cards: ATI Radeon8500 / GeForce4 TI4600/4400/4200 / GeForce3 / GeForce4MX 460/440 and they used the following games as benchmarks: Aquanox, Max Payne, Quake III Arena, Serious Sam II, RTCW, and VillageMark. Rancho*: Ähm right. Make up some benchmark scores and declare that a review. Take this with a ton of salt and make up your own mind. No product photos just numbers...

Myhard.com have the latest info on VINIX VX-3340 Xabre 400 with APD 1.0 video cards. I got say these cards look good and have great performance. All we need now is a high end card with 8X AGP and clocked @ 450/950. Hehe...

DESPITE DENIALS from AMD a few months ago that it would produce Athlon XPs using a 333MHz front side bus, it appears the company will, in fact, do so.

A report on AMD MB yesterday suggested that AMD had done an about turn and we now have confirmation from one of the firm's partners that this report is substantially correct.

Everyone who has been following the news in CD media land has already heard of it. Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray promises high speeds, superb quality and gigabytes of storage. But do we actually have a use for all of this? Does bigger make better? And why the blue laser suddenly? What is to expect in the future of storage?

Entcity.com reports that ATI has released a movie where some developers (including id's John Carmack) give their opinions on the ATI Radeon 9700! Hit Read More for your Download links to the Videos.

VR-Zone has posted the latest SiS Xabre GPU roadmap of VINIX dated 25th July showing that Xabre 600 will be scheduled for end of this year and comes with 128MB of DDR SDRAM while Xabre II will arrive in Q1 next year based on 0.13 micron and supports DirectX 9.0. There is also a higher clocked Xabre 400 at 270/270Mhz Core/Memory clock coming in August.

Sigma Designs? REALmagic Xcard sets the new standard for multimedia playback on your PC, turning it into a state-of-art Home Theatre PC (HTPC). Experience viewing your DVD and DivX video collection on your television or HDTV with the highest quality visual and audio experience possible and the convenience of remote control. Progressive DVD playback and our new Xmedia player navigation software completes the ultimate home theatre experience.