AMD launches its fastest desktop chips ever

By Agam Shah,(IDG News Service)

pcworld

In an attempt to gain an advantage in the gaming PC market, Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday launched what it called its "highest-performing CPUs" to date.

Two new quad-core Phenom II processors, aimed at high-end desktop PCs, were announced by AMD at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The chips succeed the Phenom processor the company launched in 2007, and come two days after AMD announced the new Athlon Neo processor for small laptops.

The quad-core Phenom II chips run at speeds up to 3GHz and include 8MB of cache. The chips are capable of even faster clock speeds under certain circumstances. For example, AMD overclocked Phenom II processors to run at up to 4GHz on air-cooled systems, and up to 5GHz on liquid-nitrogen cooling late last year.

Dell is already offering the XPS 625 desktop based on the Phenom II, though pricing information was not immediately available. PC makers HP and Alienware will also offer Phenom II-based desktops later in the year, according to AMD.

AMD is targeting gamers and enthusiasts with the chips, which are also affordable enough for mainstream users looking for a good gaming system, the company said.

AMD's Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition processor, which runs at 3.0GHz, is priced at US$275, while the Phenom II X4 920 processor, which runs at 2.8GHz, is sold for $235.

The Phenom II CPUs are manufactured using a 45-nanometer process, which makes the chips more power efficient than earlier chips.

The new chips are part of AMD's new Dragon platform for desktops, which includes graphics chips, chipsets and CPUs for gaming and media-intensive desktops. The platform includes the ATI Radeon 4800 series graphics cards in addition to the Phenom II.

An interesting feature of the platform is a set of customized controls to boost performance of gaming PCs. Called OverDrive, these controls allow users to ratchet up performance by overclocking the CPUs, which can then be easily returned to a normal speed at the touch of a button.

The platform also includes the ATI Video Converter software, which can convert videos to play on portable entertainment devices, according to AMD.

The platform will initially support DDR2 memory, but faster DDR3 memory support may come in a few months, AMD has said. Compared to DDR2 memory, DDR3 provides a larger bandwidth for quicker data transfers between the CPU and memory in PCs. To support DDR3 memory, AMD will introduce the new AM3 socket for motherboards in the next few months.

High-end chips for gaming systems are also offered by Intel, which launched its Core i7 processor in November.

Can Gunnar Glasses Keep Your Eyes from Stinging After Hours at the Computer?

Edward N. Albro, pcworld
I’m somewhat obsessive about seeing clearly, forever wiping my glasses with one of those special rags from the optometrist, so one of the devices I’ve seen at CES that I’d most like to try out are Gunnar glasses.

The theory is that these specially tinted, wraparound specs fight many of the factors involved with staring at a computer monitor that cause eyestrain. First off, they’re calibrated to focus best at the distance at which most people keep their screen. Lots of glasses are set to work well when you’re reading a book, but computer screens are typically farther from your eyes than a paperback.

Also, people tend to blink less when they stare at a screen, which leads their eyes to dry up. Gunnar glasses don’t force you to blink, but because they wrap closely around your head, they raise the humidity near your eyes, keeping them moist, according to a Gunnar spokesman.

Finally, the tint deals with an unpleasant fact of most offices. Florescent lights produce lots of blues and greens, but the human eye is poorly equipped to handle those parts of the spectrum. The yellowish tint of Gunnar glasses makes everything seem warmer and more soothing.

If you’ve got perfect vision, you can pick up Gunnar glasses over the counter for somewhere between $100 and $180. If you need a prescription pair, they get more pricey, as much as $600 for a pair with progressive lenses. But hey, that’s a small price to pay for both feeling better and looking like Bono

Review: Windows 7 Beta 1 shows off new task bar, more UI goodies

Goodbye, Quick Launch bar -- there's a new task bar in town.

By Preston Gralla,computerworld,:
The just-released Beta 1 version of Windows 7 is a solid, fast-performing, stable operating system that appears to be just about fully baked and ready for prime time. It is much further along than Windows Vista was during its initial beta phase, and it appears to be feature-complete. Based on the stability and speed of this beta, don't be surprised if Microsoft Corp. releases Windows 7 before 2010 rolls around.

The new, powered-up task bar makes an appearance for the first time in this beta, and it proves to be something of a mixed bag. As I'll explain later in this review, the task bar makes it much easier to manage and switch between open windows and applications, but it also mixes icons for launching applications with icons for managing open windows

Note that this review covers only the features that made their debut with Beta 1 of Windows 7. For an overall review of all of Windows 7, see "Windows 7 in-depth review and video: This time Microsoft gets it right." Also see my blog "Hacking Windows 7 beta problems" for help fixing some problems with the current release.

The new Windows task bar

The task bar, new in this beta, will no doubt be the most controversial new feature introduced in Windows 7. Gone is Quick Launch bar for launching applications that used to live at the left side of the task bar. Instead, large icons across the task bar are now used to launch applications.

By default, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player all have icons in the task bar. You can, however, add an icon for launching any application to the task bar by dragging the program's icon to it, for example, from the Most Recently Used list on the Start menu.

Those icons do double duty because they also manage your open windows. For example, if you've already launched Internet Explorer, and you have three tabs open to three different Web sites, the Internet Explorer icon changes subtly to show three icons stacked on one another, as shown in the image above, indicating that you have three tabs open.

Hover your mouse over the stacked icon, and you'll see all three open tabs as thumbnails just across the top of the task bar. Hover your mouse over any of the thumbnails, and your entire desktop is taken up by that open window. Hover it over another thumbnail, and the desktop is taken up by that one. Click any of the thumbnails or open windows, and you'll go straight to that window.

If you aren't a fan of thumbnails displaying open windows, you can instead have all open windows display as a stacked list. When you're using stacked lists, to go to any open window, click on it in the list. To close the window, hover your mouse over it in the list, and click the red "X" that appears.

One more nice touch: When you download a file using Internet Explorer, a green bar on the icon shows you the progress of the download.

Jump lists

The task bar also makes use of another new feature that debuts in this beta -- "jump lists." A jump list is a list of actions or items associated with a particular application. To see a jump list for any application, right-click its icon in the task bar.

Typically, you'll see a history list of the most recent open files -- or Web sites, in the case of Internet Explorer -- as well as options to pin the application icon to the task bar (if you haven't already pinned it there) or unpin the application from the taskbar (if you've already pinned it there).

You can also unpin the three default task-bar icons -- Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player -- in this way.

Jump lists also make their appearance on the Start menu, in the Most Recently Used application list. A small arrow appears to the right of any application with an associated jump list. Click the arrow to see the list, then make your choice from the list.

There has also been a minor change to the Windows Shut Down button. Click an arrow to the button's right, and you get a list of shutdown options, including switching to a different user, logging off, restarting, locking the desktop, or putting your machine into sleep or hibernation mode.

Aero Peek

The other major change to the interface in this beta is the addition of Aero Peek, a nifty little enhancement to the Aero interface introduced in Vista that lets you "peek" behind any open window to your desktop. It's far more fully featured than the Show Desktop icon that lived on the Quick Launch bar in previous versions of Windows.

Aero Peek lives as a small, rectangular area just to the right of the clock at the right edge of the task bar. When you have windows open and you mouse over the Aero Peek rectangle, all of your open windows disappear, and you see through to your desktop. But you don't see just the desktop -- you also see the outlines where each of your open windows would be.

So, for example, if you have three open windows -- one near the top of the desktop, one to the left side, and one to the right -- you would see the outlines of each of those screens. If you prefer just to see the desktop itself, with no outlines, click the Aero Peek rectangle instead of hovering your mouse over it.

Aero Peek also works in concert with the task bar. As I mentioned previously, when you hover your mouse over an application with open windows, you'll see thumbnails of the open windows, and you can preview them by hovering over any thumbnail. That's Aero Peek at work. If you turn off Aero Peek, you won't be able to see the thumbnails -- you'll only see them as a stacked list. To turn Aero Peek on and off, right-click the Aero Peek rectangle, and either check or uncheck the box next to Preview desktop.

I did experience some problems with Aero Peek and the task bar thumbnails (which are turned on when you turn on Aero Peek). They worked only intermittently, then inexplicably stopped working entirely. I fixed the problem using one of Windows' built-in troubleshooters, but I don't know what caused the issue. I haven't heard reports of this happening to other people, so it's possible that the issue was specific to my test machine. To fix this problem, see my blog, "Hacking Windows 7 beta problems."

Speed and compatibility

Microsoft set out to make sure that Windows 7 wouldn't have the same issues with hardware compatibility that Windows Vista had, and the company said that all hardware that works with Windows Vista should also work with Windows 7.

It appears that even in this beta version, that goal has been met. Windows 7 immediately recognized all the components of my Dell Inspiron E1505 without a hitch -- something that early versions of Vista had serious problems with, particularly when it came to wireless networking adapters.

And while the prebeta version of Windows 7 had problems connecting to my Linksys wireless router, this new beta version immediately recognized the router and connected to it without a problem.

I found no software problems either. Windows 7 ran every piece of software I threw at it, including not just obvious programs such as Microsoft Office, but lesser-used ones as well, such as Windows Live Sync. In addition, several antivirus applications are already compatible with Windows 7, including AVG and Kaspersky. I've been running the free version of AVG without problems.

I found a problem with Windows 7, in which it doesn't recognize multiple drives. Several people have reported similar problems. I installed Windows 7 on a dual-boot machine, in which the C: drive boots to XP and the J: drive boots to Windows 7. Unaccountably, when I boot into Windows 7, Windows 7 shows the J: drive as if it were a C: drive. And the real C: drive is invisible -- it simply doesn't show up in Windows 7 at all, and I have no access to it. However, when I boot to XP, I can see both the C: and J: drives. If anyone has a solution for this, I'd appreciate hearing it -- there's a lot of disk space going to waste. I've found a fix for the problem. See my blog "Hacking Windows 7 beta problems" for how to do it,

Beta operating systems typically run slower than the shipping version, but Beta 1 of Windows 7 is already surprisingly fast. It appears to be clearly faster than Vista, without delays associated with displaying menu items or boxes, launching programs, or doing other tasks.

The bottom line

This first beta of Windows 7 is a polished piece of work, with few apparent kinks to be worked out. Windows 7 is much further along at this beta stage than Windows Vista was at a similar point. In Vista's Beta 1 stage, the user interface was still being tweaked, the operating system was sluggish, and there were many hardware incompatibilities. Not so with Windows 7. Because so little has changed between the prebeta and beta versions of Windows 7, don't be surprised if Windows 7 is on a fast track to release.

That being said, the new task bar is somewhat confusing to use at first. After you live with it for a while, you get used to it doing double duty as a task launcher and windows manager. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft tweaked it in future beta versions.

Given the beta's stability and speed, you can safely download it and use this on a test machine. As with any beta of an operating system, though, you shouldn't use it on a production machine