Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Morphing NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra into nForce4 SLI. NVIDIA’s Mainboard Partners Design Semi-SLI Platforms

9:51 am | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Mainboards powered by NVIDIA nForce4-series chipsets are entering mass-production now, but not all of them are capable of the feature quite some end-users want most of all – Multi-GPU SLI capability. Still, some mainboard makers seem to know how to transform less expensive NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra into NVIDIA nForce4 SLI media and communication processors.

“It really did not come as a surprise that nForce4 Ultra and nForce4 SLI are the same chipset with some capabilities in Ultra turned off. We have seen many cases over the years in which a manufacturer has one CPU-die or one chipset come off a production line, which are then differentiated with laser cuts or some other means of controlling speed or capabilities. What did come as a surprise is how very easy it is to reverse the process - to turn the nForce4 Ultra into the higher-priced and better-performing nForce4 SLI. This is an extremely easy mod for almost anyone,” claims AnandTech web-site, who has find a way to transform NVIDIA’s nForce4 Ultra into fully-fledged nForce4 SLI and even managed to run numerous benchmarks on such modified system.

• AnandTech: Morphing nForce4 Ultra into nForce4 SLI.

Startup Proposes Free 10GB Online Lockers. Streamload Offers 10GB Online Storage

9:50 am | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Streamload, a startup based in San Diego, California, has announced intention to offer customers 10GB online storage space for free, but with some restrictions: unless paid for, the system allows users to download only 100GB monthly and upload 100GB at a time.

For subscribers, who will be charged $44.95 - $399.95 year, Streamload will offer unlimited storage, and, depending on the price, ability to download up to 60GB monthly. The service may be useful for those, who do not want to store their data, be it pictures, music or movies, locally, but have broadband Internet to upload and download necessary content. The company says any type of data will be stored safely at Streamload’s data center, but notes that it has special mechanisms that do not allow storing any illegal types of content.

• ZDNet: Company Offers 10GB of Net Storage, For Free.
• Streamload.com: Online Storage – Send, Receive, Access Your Files.

Software Firm Develops Voice-Recognition Tech for Cars. Hey Car, Put a Record On

9:46 am | Anton Shilov

Having a large collection of MP3s recorded on your car’s player is an indisputable pleasure, but trying to find anything in a multi-gigabyte collection when you ride is inconvenience. But everything may change, when software firm Gracenote introduces its software that will allow drivers to tell the player the track they want to listen to at that moment.

“Pushing buttons can be challenging when you're driving down the road at 80 miles an hour. The reason we thought we could do this now is that they've worked out the problems with voice recognition in the navigation and telematics market,” said Ross Blanchard, Gracenote’s vice president of business development.

• CNET News.com: Car, Play me Eminem’s Latest Hit.
• Gracenote.com.

Enthusiasts Run Intel Pentium 4 at 6.20GHz. Overclockers Set Intel Pentium 4 at 6.20GHz

9:43 am | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Meanwhile Intel Corp. stops its clock-speed rally at 3.80GHz for at least a while, enthusiasts who do not feel fear for their processors push Intel’s latest Prescott chips’ speed up to 6.20GHz from 3.80GHz.

Enthusiasts among visitors of Germany-based web-site ComputerBase said they have managed to push the speeds of an Intel Pentium 4 processor 570J (3.80GHz) up to 6.20GHz using cryogen cooling. They claim they plan to overclock the chip to 6.60GHz in future, though, even now they can run their benchmarks only at 5.30GHz speed.

• ComputerBase: Intel Pentium 4 at 6.20GHz.
• X-bit labs: Intel Scraps Plans for 4.00GHz Desktop Microprocessors

ATI’s Latest Drivers for Graphics Cards Tested. ATI CATALYST 5.1 Drivers Examined

9:38 am | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Loads of computer and technology enthusiasts spend a great amount of time in an attempt to find out the fastest drivers for their graphics cards in preferred games and applications. Knowing tremendous interest for such examinations, a number of web-sites have issued their ATI CATALYST 5.1 reviews.

“When you are seeing a new driver set from a company month in, month out, it's unfair to expect massive performance leaps every time. And thus the release of CATALYST 5.1 is one such day, where the focus of ATI's driver team has clearly been that of bug fixing over performance gains - Still a welcome sight, especially for those of you experiencing the issues listed in the release notes. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to play or fully enjoy your favourite game thanks to a driver bug, so getting a slew of bug fixes each month is a real bonus,” web-site Hexus.net believes.

• 3DCenter.org: ATI CATALYST 3.2 – 5.1 Driver Comparison.
• Hexus.net: ATI CATALYST 5.1 Performance Analysis.
• TweakTown: ATI CATALYST 5.1 Performance Analysis.

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