GamesIndustry.biz reports that a number of Japanese magazines are reporting that Microsoft is moving ahead with plans to release a redesigned Xbox, dubbed "Xbox 1.5", which will come in a significantly smaller case than the original model.

Striving to provide computing environments of the highest performance, ASUSTeK Computer Inc., announced a new high-quality motherboard supporting the latest AMD Athlon? XP 3200+ processor on 400MHz front side bus (FSB). The ASUS A7V600 motherboard, based on VIA's latest KT600 chipset, is the company's all-new solution for the Athlon XP processor 3200+on 400MHz FSB. The motherboard incorporates cutting-edge specifications such as DDR 400 memory, AGP 8x graphics interface, serial ATA, IEEE 1394, Gigabit Ethernet and S/PDIF digital audio to bring out the top performance offered by the AMD Athlon XP processor 3200+.

SANTA CLARA, CA?JUNE 3, 2003?NVIDIA Corporation the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today announced the NVIDIA® GeForce? FX Go5600 graphics processing unit (GPU) with 64MB DDR video memory, has been selected by Toshiba?s Computer Systems Group (CSG), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems for the Satellite® 5205-S705 notebook PC.

Gigabyte is showcasing a new CD-ROM/DVD-ROM combo drive in their virtual Computex product portfolio. The GO-M1600A is nothing like you've seen before. The 16X DVD-ROM / 48X CD-ROM comes with a FM tuner, MP3 playing capability, a VFD display and SRS WOW digital sound processor for 3D surround and enhanced bass playback. To top all of that the unit is controllable by a remote and offers PC power off playback. The drive has 512KB internal buffer memory. Read more for a large sized photograph.

Today Nordic Hardware takes a look at 7 Radeon 9800 Pro cards, where 2 boards are reference boards from ATI and the 5 others are retail products. These are just about the fastest videocards you can get your hands on right now. ATI recently launched their 256 MB version of the Radeon 9800 Pro and it's in here as well, but the focus remains on the retail products.

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AMDZone have thrown up their nForce 2 motherboard roundup with boards from Asus, Abit, Chaintech, FIC, Epox and Leadtek.

Nvidia's nForce 2 chipset is currently the dominant Athlon chipset on the market. With features that no other desktop chipset can match Nvidia has picked up many more design wins than with the original nForce.

VR-Zone.com reports that Creative has announced the new 3DBlaster 5 RX9800 Pro card based on the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro VPU with 256MB DDR-II SDRAM onboard. This card will be available in June and costs a hefty US$550.

Gericom, a european frontrunner in the field of mobile computing and communications, is the first vendor to launch a new notebook that utilizes the new ATI M10P graphics chip in 64 or 128MB memory configurations. With its own development department and long-term development co-operation with leading technology providers and leading sales partners Gericom sets new standards. The Radeon Mobility 9600 features full DirectX 9 support as well as ATI Overdrive, which automatically adjusts to the ideal clock speed / performance based on the thermal environment. Read more...

Just spotted this bit of info at Xbitlabs. They assume that a lot of manufacturer i865P and i865PE powered mainboards are built on the same PCBs. The only difference between i865P and i865PE is the 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus support. Xbitlabs now flashed a P board with a PE BIOS and it works great.

HisSvt2 over at Abit's forum claims to have got his Abit BE7-Raid 845PE chipset to run at 800MHz FSB and HyperThreading enabled on a board that should not do it. It is done with a hacked BIOS.

Got my 2.4c today slapped it in my be7-raid set some bios setting and bam ive got hyperthreading and 800fsb goodness on a 845pe chipset.

Nvmax have compiled together a list of spec's for ATI's upcoming R360 GPU from various web sources. Here's a snip:

Name: Radeon 9900PRO / GPU Core: R360 Clock Speed: 420Mhz (Bit of guess work there though it would seem reasonable) Man. Process: 0.15µ (TSMC will have massively matured this by now - better high clock speed yields) Pixel Fillrate: 3360MPixels/s

Want to know more? Then click on the above ATI logo.

Just got word from Crow at Darkcrow.co.kr that their 3 page preview of Nvidia's GeForce FX 5900 Ultra video card is out and he also tells me that he's put together a 1 min 14 second video of the card! So you can get a better look at it.

Beyond 3D's Dave Baumann sent me an email about rumours or speculation if you prefer of an Radeon 9800 XT graphics card ... ATI will have another product available in a few months or so, and there are some clues as to what that product is. DDR-II RAM on the 256MB 9800 PRO, which is currently running at 350MHz, is actually rated for 450MHz operation.

When ATI went out to find some RAM for this product they couldn't get much in the way of DDR-II rated at 350MHz, but strangely Samsung had a fair amount of 400MHz+ DDR-II stockpiled but, now, unused so they sold it to ATI at a very attractive rate. Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB's may have a reasonable memory overclock because of this, but by the looks out the layout and the length of some of the traces I'll wager that this will not get up to these levels. The new product that will come out is probably likely still to be a Radeon 9800 classed product, but with a newer suffix - "XT".

Digit-life have posted their investigation into nForce2 performance when run in either single-channel mode or dual-channel mode. Here's a snip:

Some time ago we published the review on the NVIDIA's chipset where we touched upon some prejudices, but when the nForce2 hit the stores the number of rumors rose sharply. That is why we decided to carry out a certain investigation to clear the things up, but attentive readers will find nothing new here. Moreover, the article is written in a very simple language, ignoring such terms as memory banks...

Just got word from crow at Darkcrow that he's snagged a few photo's of MSI's GeForce FX 5900 video card.

Here is a card and boxshot photo of Gainwards GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics board. Interesting changes to the card are, that it is a 'single slot' solution and appears to have less capacitors than the reference model.

They're drowning in videocards at NordicHardware right now. First up in the latest batch is Radeon 9600 Pro. ATI recently sent a reference sample of their latest mid end card and since its gotten a great acception in the press as of yet find out what makes this product tick.

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Just got word from the guy's at Tweakhound that they have found a fix for Delayed Write Errors on ATi's Radeon 9500 Pro with the help of ATI's Terry Makedon & Raymond Skarratt.

I recently purchased a ATI 9500 Pro video card. Upon installation of the card I immediately began getting Delayed Write Errors. I have narrowed down the problem to this section of tweaks.

Logitech today announced the new Cordless MX Duo performance keyboard and mouse combination that heads up the Logitech cordless desktop offering. The Cordless MX Duo combines the award-winning MX 700 rechargeable cordless optical mouse with the company's top-selling Cordless Elite Keyboard. Based on Fast RF technology, the MX700 performance mouse ensures the highest level of precision and accuracy available today, while the highly successful keyboard design puts advanced Internet navigation and expert media center controls within easy fingertip reach. The Logitech Cordless MX Duo is now available worldwide in retail outlets and online at www.logitech.com for $99.95 USD. Read more...

At the end of May Nvidia plans to release and start shipments of the GeForce FX 5600 revision "B" with clock speed of 400MHz vs. previous 350MHz! Darkcrow has a comparison photo of the new NV31 chip against the old one.