|
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
| 2015 © KickAss Gear | |||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
| KickAss
Gear News Archive: January 2002
January 31st 2002 Remember Memory Prices in 1999? Well, the recent price hikes across the board for computer memory modules is making me wonder how high the prices will go again. Several years ago, reduced supplies, an Earthquake in Taiwan, and increased demand drove memory prices into the stratosphere. We haven't gotten anywhere near that this year, but overall, memory prices have doubled since their low last Fall, when memory prices collapsed on the world market. DDR DRAM has been in relatively short supply, and as a result, prices are up significantly. DDR modules of 256MB size are approaching $80, still a good deal, but nowhere near the $40 price range we saw a few months back. Will prices continue to rise? It depends on the usual two suspects; supply and demand. If manufacturers limit supply, prices will continue to rise, as long as demand remains the same, or increases. January 29th Intel is Worried About the Hammer. According to numerous articles, and my
deep mole in the industry (the BIG Z), Intel is so worried about AMDs X86-64-bit Clawhammer processor, that they are working on their own knock-off of the
CPU in case the Itanium sinks! Here's the take home message. The Itanium is Intel's non-X86 64-bit CPU, and it's selling like ice cubes at the North Pole. Why? It's way overpriced, way underpowered, and there are almost no applications available that will run on them. That's because Intel decided to make them with their own proprietary 64-bit architecture, which is incompatible with today's 32-bit software. January 28th Microsoft's Take on Help This Help article may not be on Microsoft's web site, but it looks like it is, and gosh, maybe it should be... It tells Microsoft customers who have questions, how to "Read The F-ing Manual." Be warned, there is profanity, so the highly sensitive should not view. All others who have a question for Microsoft, however, should check out the link, and then RTFM. January 27th Unreal Performance Test 2002 Epic Megagames is working on finishing up their improvements to the Unreal-2 engine (build 848) in preparation for the release of Unreal-2. They are also finishing up a benchmark program based on the new engine, which will be called Unreal Performance Test 2002. You can check out the details on Anandtech. The bottom line is, you're going to need a fast computer (probably 1.3GHz or better) with at least a Radeon 8500 or GeForce3 Ti500 video card to get decent benchmarks with this test. It sounds like Unreal Performance Test 2002 will be a great alternative to 3D Mark 2001 for benchmarking under Direct X 8. I discuss the details on the latest "Daily Rumor" (MP3 format). January 24th Failed US Flat Panel Industry Earlier this fiscal year, the US Government pulled it's funding of the "US Display Consortium", cutting the R&D budget for the group by millions of dollars per year. Over the last several years, most of the US Flat Panel development firms have gone belly up, and only a few die hard contenders remain. The most recent flat panel development company to fail was Field Emission Displays. They were working on a relatively new flat panel technology (field emission display) similar to regular CRT monitors in concept (including requiring a vacuum), but almost as flat as liquid crystal displays. One US company still working on field emission flat panels is PixTech. But this technology still needs work. Existing flat panels based on this technology are small and monochrome. A promising new technology from Kodak is known as "organic light emitting diodes" or OLED. Compared with standard LCDs, they are brighter, have more saturated colors, have a larger viewing angle, and respond more quickly, eliminating ghosting. You can check out Kodak's OLED technology here. January 23rd Athlon Versus Pentium 4 Roadmaps Mike Magee at The Inquirer has the latest roadmaps for Intel and AMD processors, and looking at the two maps makes me think that AMD is imitating Intel's map. The two maps are almost in perfect register (no pun intended about Mr. Magee's old stomping grounds). The curious part is that Intel is holding back. Northwood Pentium 4 chips can be clocked to 3GHz or higher right now, but by the third quarter of this year, the Intel road map is still stuck at 2.5GHz. Now that's just plain milking of customers if you ask me. They made a new 0.13 micron CPU that can run much faster than they are clocking it now, but they are holding back on purpose. There are several reasons I'm sure, including product cycles, not angering the customers that just paid top dollar for 2GHz chips, and not needing to leapfrog AMD to stay top dog in the chip business. So if both companies stick to their roadmaps (shouldn't that be chipmaps?) we still won't be above 2.5GHz by September of 2002. How depressing. Overclocking anyone?? :) Plastic Memory Yes, you read that right. Intel and a Swedish firm called Thin Film Electronics are working together to develop a non-silicon based memory. In fact, the memory modules are composed only of thin plastic films which are printed like photographs. These can be layered on top of each other to make very dense 3D memory modules. Intel plans on taking over the flash memory market with these new plastic chips, which only cost 1/10th as much to produce as current silicon-based memory chips. Then, if it works out, I expect they may make the move to the PC memory market. Can you imagine buying 4GB of plastic RAM for $40? The only problem I can foresee is that the plastic memory may not be as fast as silicon-based memory modules, relegating them to hand-held devices and the like. January 21st Athlon\Linux Bug? It's always really difficult to figure out if strings of messages on message boards have any connection with reality, but one message thread at Slashdot suggests that there is a paging-size bug in the Athlon that affects Linux and AGP cards. I find it almost impossible to believe that it took this long to find such a bug, but the reports seem consistent. Normally, the Linux community is very quick to pick up on these sorts of problems, so how this one could have slipped through the cracks for over a year baffles me. The problem, if it actually exists, relates to memory corruption under Linux 2.4 when extended paging is used in conjunction with the AGP socket on the motherboard. Considering how many people are using Linux with AGP cards on Athlon systems, I'm still left wondering what took so long to find this problem, if it really is a problem. I'll be very interested to hear how this one plays out. January 19th AOL to Buy Red Hat Linux? Holly Bill-killer Batman! I wonder if Bill is getting worried yet? Could you imagine a slick, easy-to-use (no more drive mounting?) and highly reliable alternative to Windows? It's hard to even contemplate such a thing. Would AOL be able to turn Linux into a mainstream operating system? It's awful hard to say. Microsoft has a fairly robust and reliable OS now with Windows 2K and XP, but is really putting the licensing pressure on it's customers. Even if AOL/Time Warner can make Red Hat Linux into a fully functional, easy-to-use, home operating system, it still doesn't guarantee they will cut very far into Microsoft's user base. But if they give Linux away, and only charge for the manual and user support, perhaps there is a chance that it could hurt MS in the long run. After all, Microsoft invented the technique of making a competing product, and then giving it away to kill the competition. Now Bill may get a taste of his own medicine. How ironic. January 18th Hate Microsoft? Why Didn't You Buy BeOS? Be Inc. closed up shop and auctioned off it's assets this week. Be Inc. was the maker of the Windows alternative operating system, BeOS. It was a great little OS, but nobody bought it. Hence, bankruptcy and liquidation. Oh well... you had your chance to thumb your nose at Microsoft with the purchase of a nice alternative, but that chance is gone. There's still one other option left though, and you know what it is. Bill calls it "the L word". Everyone else calls it Linux. January 17th Intel i850 and i860 Have PCI Problems Too. According to the "bug sheet" over at Intel, the i850 and i860 chipsets also have PCI burst rate problems, as reported for VIA chipsets recently. No mention of a bug patch is offered. The plain fact of the matter is, the PCI bus is becoming a major bottleneck in high-speed computers with 2GHz CPUs, high-performance memory, and ATA/133 hard drives. Southbridge chipsets and current PCI buses just haven't got the bandwidth or throughput to keep up with the other parts of the system. Expect a move toward 64-bit PCI motherboards, Hypertransport, and improved Southbridge chipsets over the next year. Micro$oft Needs Your Money Bill is struggling to stay the richest man in the world, and accordingly, he is going ahead full steam with the "Home$tation". This is the "convergence" of PCs, home entertainment systems and online shopping access into one proprietary box. And who will you pay for the box, the accessories, the .Net access, and all the software? Bill, of course. So start saving your pennies, Bill awaits them eagerly. DDR Standards Clash is Moot DDR is getting a facelift, but the upgrade is occurring within two different working groups at the same time. JEDEC is the current memory standards setting body, and ADT is a newer alliance of interested companies that is working in parallel with JEDEC. So when ADT announced that it had developed 'impedance control' and 'line termination' for DDR, JEDEC members got miffed. Why? Because JEDEC had already incorporated these two improvements into their new DDR standard. In any case, the entire spat is moot, because any new standard developed at ADT will still need JEDEC approval. So the redundancy of effort seems non-productive, and calls into question the entire existence of ADT. But duplicated effort is an oft practiced human endeavor. January 15th VIA Working on PCI Patch The sluggish behavior of the VIA 686B and VT8233 Southbridge chips is being addressed by VIA. The chipset maker says that a patch will be forthcoming. The problem usually only manifests itself with RAID arrays and SCSI hard drive controllers. You can read about the problem here. January 14th Anal-ysts Bash AMD.... Again! In their continuing efforts to denigrate AMD, and bolster Intel, another Prudential stock anal-yst has recommended that AMD stock is way overvalued, and should be avoided. Especially with Intel's share prices being so attractively priced right now. But if you look at the charts below (top = AMD, bottom = Intel over the last year), you'll see that the prices for shares in the two companies seem almost linked. This is because the microprocessor industry's fortunes are tied together by computer sales. When one does well, the other typically also does well. One exception to this occurred last Spring and Summer, when Intel's share prices went flat, while AMD's rose, and peaked. Both company's share prices tanked in August or September.
So is AMD overvalued? It's hard to say. Right now it's at just over half of it's peak of last May. The PE ratio is almost 60, meaning that many investors have significant confidence in the company. Compared with Intel's PE of about 80, little old AMD isn't doing too badly on the investor confidence front. My guess is that AMD will suffer slightly as the Intel "Northwood" P4 hits the streets with DDR memory. But AMD will turn that situation around again when the Thoroughbred and Hammer series CPUs come out over the next 3 to 6 months. January 12th Hey Ma! My Mail Glows in the Dark! In what I think is another over-reaction to the terrorist attacks, the US Postal Service has begun irradiating all mail in the Washington DC area with electron beams. The reason this has become of interest to PC and electronics vendors and enthusiasts here in the DC area is that many such devices are highly sensitive to electron beams. The list of susceptible hardware is not entirely certain at this point, since most electronic hardware isn't tested for vulnerability to cathode rays. You can be sure that flashcards won't fare well, and other magnetic chips and devices may also fall victim to the electron bath that the DC mail is getting. So the Postal Service is recommending you abandon it's services for electronic equipment in the DC area. A recommendation that is sure to help them with their sagging business. January 10th Intel Says Goodbye to Rambus With the introduction of it's new 845-D chipset supporting double data rate DRAM, Intel is effectively distancing itself from the controversial memory patent company, Rambus. According to Jack Robertson, who has followed Rambus for years, Intel is now relegating Rambus DRAM to the high-end niche market, and has given up trying to promote the memory as a mainstream product. Folks have counted Rambus down and out many times before, but the intellectual property firm just keeps on going, despite losing court case after court case. Rambus is still found in every Playstation2, and is incorporated into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Pentium 4 PCs around the world. So while Rambus may not be found in Celeron, Athlon or Duron computer systems, it is still present in a significant number of computers, and will continue to be used in all high-end Pentium 4 systems for the foreseeable future. But without the BIG clout provided by Intel, Rambus will never attain their original goal of becoming the preferred memory architecture for PCs over the next decade. They will, instead, be found in set top boxes, and high-end Intel systems only. January 9th Originator of the PC, IBM, Gets Out of PC Making. The company that made the PC a household name is getting out of the PC making business. IBM didn't invent or make the first home PC, but they made the first one that was universally accepted by many businesses, as well as many households. But considering how much overhead is involved in making PCs, and how small the profit margins are, it's a wonder more companies aren't getting out. IBM introduced the 8088, single floppy drive, 256KB memory computer they called the "PC" in the early 1980's. The first big upgrade was to the IBM XT, which had an actual hard drive! By this time, Compaq had entered the scene with their Desk Pro series, and the hardware wars had begun. IBM made some mis-steps, like with their PS/2 series and microchannel architecture, which was never adopted by the industry. Then of course there was OS/2, which went the way of the PS/2. After that, IBM was just another PC maker. I can envision a day when Dell and Apple account for 70% or more of personal computer sales, especially if the likes of Gateway and HP get out of the PC making business over the next year. Times are tough for PC makers, and the state of the economy isn't helping the situation. Only time, and the shifting fortunes of the economy, will tell if PC sales can pick up again, eliminating some of the pressure to get off the computer sales merry-go-round. January 8th SNAP and the 415-D Nforce Chipset. The "Strategic NVidia AMD Alliance", or SNAP, is about to unleash a new Athlon chipset, the 415-D. This NForce-based chipset includes things like a pre-processor (dynamic adaptive speculative pre-processor, or DASP) to enhance CPU performance, and 128 bit, 4.2GB/s DDR memory bandwidth. Motherboards with the 415-D are supposed to be out in about a month, but the shortage of current Nforce motherboards suggests that the rollout may not occur as fast as AMD and NVidia would like. So if you were thinking about getting an Nforce motherboard, wait for a 415-D motherboard, and you'll be much happier in the long run. Smile for the Cameras! You may have heard about the so-called "face-recognition" systems being touted as the savior of civilization, and the bane of terrorists world-wide. The freedom of information act has been used to find out that the face-recognition system from Visionics being tested in Florida is a total failure. In the two month test period, the system failed to detect a single crook or terrorist stored in the database, but did misidentify 14 innocent people as terrorists. You'd do better hiring children to guard airports. But like our government, many corporations are not shy about using the terrorist attacks on September 11th as an excuse for furthering their agendas or their business plans. I find it telling that Visionics seems to love the word "empowering" as much as dear old Microsoft. Visionics is "empowering identification". Yeah right. And Microsoft is empowering innovation.... isn't it? Oh sure. January 6th Athlon XP 2000+ vs. Pentium 4 Northwood 2.2GHz. Scott over at The Tech Report has a nice comparison of the newest CPUs from Intel and AMD. I was sure that Intel would woop AMD's butt this time around. But did they??? Check out the article to find out!!! :) January 5th Post-Holiday Computer Industry. You may have noticed that memory prices are on the rise again. Nothing like what we saw in 1999 and early 2000, but still, it's a big change from the constant deflation that has occurred over the last year. Both SDRAM and DDR DRAM prices are up by as much as 30% over their all-time lows. Reduced production and short supplies are the usual suspects. And what about supplies of new hardware? So far, nForce motherboards, KT266A motherboards, GeForce Ti cards and Pentium 4 processors are all in very short supply. In fact, it's still almost impossible to find nForce-based motherboards anywhere. Part of the problem may be that manufacturers are worried about over-supply problems, which drive prices down. So for now, they are pulling an "OPEC", and are limiting production so as to avoid flooding the market. If this trend continues, computer prices may rise significantly over the next few months, which will slow sales even further. Let's hope we don't get to that point. And what's new and upcoming? Northwood, the 0.13 micron version of the Pentium 4 should be out soon. This little CPU could just save Intel's butt, and put them back in the catbird seat. It will be cheap to produce, and faster than anything. If Intel makes the price right, this new CPU could even boost Rambus DRAM sales! I guess there's a downside to every good thing. GeForce 4??? I'm not holding my breath. Athlon XP 2000+?? No big deal, I'm waiting for the 0.13 micron Athlon (Thoroughbred) and "Hammer" series of processors. They should all debut during the first half of 2002. And some very cool PC games should be coming out soon, including Unreal 2 and Medal of Honor. Can't wait!! :) January 3rd Windows XP is a Home PC Operating System. According to an article at IDG.net, Windows XP is not being adopted by corporations. As I mentioned some weeks back, this is because most corporations are still either just deploying Windows 2000 now, or they are still working the bugs out of their Windows 2000 networks with "Active Directory". Some corporations are still hesitant to abandon Windows NT because it's working just fine with service pack 6. None of this sits well with Bill. He can't stay the richest man in the world if companies don't keep pace. So he wants corporations to sign up for Microsoft's new "License 6.0 program" which offers volume discounts to companies who "deploy on schedule"... Microsoft's schedule that is. But it isn't going to happen any time soon. One IT manager who was asked was quoted as saying "The Windows 2000 desktop is good for 20 years. Why upgrade to a new system every two or three years?" Ouch. So at least for now, Windows XP is mainly relegated to the home PC environment. And it's in that environment that Bill is selling most of his new licenses. That's because Windows XP is the first OS where you can't install the same copy onto multiple machines on a home network. If you have 2 computers on a home network, you'll need to buy one copy of Windows XP, and one license for the second machine (at a $10 discount over the retail price). If you have 3 machines on the network, you'll need one full Windows XP CD, and 2 licenses... and so on. In contrast, with Windows 98SE and Windows 2000, you can load the same copy onto multiple machines on a home network. January 2nd China: Evil Empire or Trading Partner? G.W. Bush began his administration by sending spy planes closer to the Chinese border, resulting in a mid-air plane collision, and an International incident. By last Thursday, Bush granted China permanent normal trade relations status with the US. This schizophrenic attitude is telling of the turmoil that is the Bush administration's China policy. Evil empire.... trading partner.... evil empire.... trading partner... who knows when the daisy petals will run out. Conservatives can't have it both ways. China is either an evil empire, or they are a trading partner. It was clear during the Clinton administration that China was a trading partner, but that status has been in jeopardy since Bush took office. The lack of a coherent China policy is bad for business, but good for pro-military propaganda purposes. It will be interesting to see how long the Bush administration can walk the political tightrope between evil empire (and thus more cold-war military funding), and trading partner (and thus lucrative trade relations). It will be good for consumers if the in-fighting in the Bush administration dies down, and the "trade partner" faction wins the argument. US Taliban What do the Taliban and some New Year's revelers in the US have in common? They think shooting guns into the air is just plain fun. One woman was even struck in the head by a festive bullet obeying the law of gravity in Baltimore on New Year's eve. I understand that there are people in Afghanistan with such a poor education that they don't know any better. But I'm a bit surprised that discharging firearms has been resurrected as a form of entertainment in urban America. There's just no accounting for human stupidity. Copyright 2002, KickAss Gear |
