Techiton

Intel has planned to cut the price of five of its CPUs on 19 July 2009. The five CPU's include a quad-core, a core2duo and three dual-core chips.

The price drops are in the range of 10 to 20 percent as follows:
Core2Quad Q8300 (2.5 GigaHertz) will drop by $20 from $183 to $163
Core2Duo E7500 (2.93 GigaHertz) will drop by $20 from $133 to $113
Pentium Dual-Core E5400 (2.7 GigaHertz) will drop by $10 from $84 to $74
Pentium Dual-Core E5300 (2.6 GigaHertz) will drop by $10 from $74 to $64
Celeron Dual-Core E1500 (2.2 GigaHertz) will drop by $10 from $53 to $43

Update Sunday, July 26, 2009:
Intel has lowered the price of the processors above last week. In-addition they have also cut the prices of the following CPU's:

CPU	Speed	Old Price	New Price
Q9400	2.66 GHz	$213	$183
Q9300	2.50 GHz	$213	$183
Q8400	2.66 GHz	$183	$163
Q8300	2.50 GHz	$183	$163
Q9400S	2.66 GHz	$277	$245
Q8400S	2.66 GHz	$245	$213

Maingear has just launched what it has claimed is the world's most fastest and powerful laptop for games. Maingear also claims that the eX-L series were the first notebook to ever use Intel mobile quad-core CPUs.

The fastest version of ex-L 18 is powered by Intel Core2Extreme processor X9300 clocked at 2.53 GigaHertz. Two other versions are available and clocked by the slower Core2Duo chip, P8700 at 2.53 GigaHertz and T9600 at 2.8 GigaHertz. It has a memory capacity of upto 8 GigaBytes of type DDR3. The Graphics is powered by Nvidia's GTX 280m in SLI having 2 GigaBytes of memory. The storage capacity has the option of both SATA and SSD with upto 500 GigaBytes of SATA or 80 GigaBytes of SSD. The laptop can also be order with RAID configuration with upto 1.5 TeraBytes of capacity.

The laptop has a display size of a massive 18.4 inches for immersive gameplay with 7.1 high-definition audio. Other features include Wifi (a/b/g/draft-n), bluetooth 2.1, blueray, illuminated keyboard, eSATA, 3 MegaPixel Cam. The laptop price starts at US3,000 for the basic version and goes upto US6,000 on the most powerful version.

Acer has recently come out with a new nettop branded the Acer N260G which is built on Intel's chipset rather than Nvidia's Ion. Nettops are basically affordable desktops purpose-built primarily for web surfing, email, and basic Internet usage.

According to Asus, "the N260G features exceptional components fitted into a petite diamond-shaped chassis, built for space-constrained computing needs". The N206G is powered by Intel's Atom processor clocked at 1.66 GigaHertz and can accommodate upto 2 GigaBytes of memory.

The nettop comes with a host of features including six USB ports, mutli-card readers, suite of management softwares, OS choice of XP or Vista, etc.

N260G Specifications:
CPU: Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz
RAM: upto 2GB DDR2 (2 slots)
HDD: 160GB SATAII (3.5inch drive bay)
Chipset: Intel GN40
Graphics: Intel GMA 4500M
Other Features:

• Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN
• Mutli-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/xD)
• Integrated Realtek stereo speakers

I/O Ports:

• 6 x USB 2.0
• 1 x PS2
• 1 x Integraded Gigabit LAN (RJ45)
• 1 x D-Sub
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x PCIe
• 2 x Audio jacks
• 1 x Mutli-in-1 Card Reader

Price: n/a

[Source: Acer]

Other Featured Nettops:    MSI Wind Neton    Asus Eee Top

The number of PCs shipped around the globe in 2009 is expected to be lower than the previous year, the first time since the 2001 dot-com bust, according to market research firm iSuppli.

Just 287.3 million PCs will be shipped in 2009, a 4 percent decrease from the 299.2 million shipped around the world in 2008, according to a projection in a report released Tuesday by iSuppli.
To be sure, expectations were conservative for this year — but iSuppli’s projection indicates that the industry is on track to do worse than previously thought, with 0.7 percent growth for the year.

iSuppli says the culprit is “the fading out of the desktop computer”. According to the study, shipments of desktops are expected to decline 18.1 percent this year, while notebooks are on track to grow almost 12 percent this year — the first time they outpaced desktop shipments for a whole year.

[Source: ZDnet]

Intel is going to launch three new desktop processors, two high-end Core-i7 and one performance-level Core-i5. These will be the first of the LGA 1156 type socket. Intel also recently launched two processors of high-performance desktops - Core i7-975 and 950 back in May.

All the three chips are codenamed Lynnfield and based on the LGA 1156 type socket. The Core i7-870 is clocked at 2.93 GigaHertz with 8 MegaBytes of cache, the Core i7-860 is clocked at 2.8 GigaHertz with 8 MegaBytes of cache and the Core-i5 is clocked at 2.66 GigaHertz with the same 8 MegaBytes of cache. Both the two Core i7 and the Core i5 are quad-core chips but the former has 8 threads in them while the latter has 4 threads.

The Core-i5 is expected to be released first around September, 2009 while the other two are expected to be released early next year 2010. The specifications and price are listed below.

Update Sunday, September 27, 2009
Intel has already released all the three processors earlier this month.

Core i7 870 Lynnfield Specifications:
Speed: 2.93 GHz
Cores: 4 (8 threads)
Cache Size: 8 MB
Memory controller: DDR3 1066/1333 MHz
Socket: LGA1156
Power TDP: 95 W
Price: $562

Core i7 860 Lynnfield Specifications:
Speed: 2.80 GHz
Cores: 4 (8 threads)
Cache Size: 8 MB
Memory controller: DDR3 1066/1333 MHz
Socket: LGA1156
Power TDP: 95 W
Price: $284

Core i5 750 Lynnfield Specifications:
Speed: 2.66 GHz
Cores: 4 (4 threads)
Cache Size: 8 MB
Memory controller: DDR3 1066/1333 MHz
Socket: LGA1156
Power TDP: 95 W
Price: $196

AMD is set to launch its fastest quad-core processor around August 2009, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is a new high performance 45 nanometer chip by AMD for desktops.

The Phenom II X965 is made on the AM3 socket clocked at 3.4 GigaHertz and will be the fastest clocked Quad-core processor till date. Intel's fastest quad-core is the Core i7-975 clocked at 3.33 GigaHertz. The chip will contain 2 MegaBytes of L2 cache and 6 MegaBytes of L3 cache.

AMD released its Phenom II X4 chips early this year, click here to view the previous releases.

Phenom II X4 965 Specifications:
Speed: 3.4 GHz
Cores: 4
L2-Cache Size: 2 MB (4x512KB)
L3-Cache Size: 6MB
Hypter Transport speed: 2000 MHz
Socket: AM3
Power TDP: 125 W
Price: N/A

Asus has recently showcased its Intel's CULV (Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage) based laptop. The UX30 is a slim notebook with aesthetic design built to last long with a low power consumption.

The UX30 is powered by Intel's ultra-low-voltage penryn based 45 nanometer fabrication technology. The notebook comes with either a Core2Duo or a Core2Solo processor both with a clock frequency of 1.4 GigaHertz. It has a memory size of upto 4 GigaBytes and a SATA storage capacity of ranging from 250 GigaBytes to 500 GigaBytes.

It has a display size of 13.3 inches and is slim at 1.9 centimeters thickness. It weighs around 1.6 Kilograms. The laptop will be available later this year.

Asus UX30 Specifications:
CPU: Intel Core2Duo SU9400 (1.40GHz) or Core2Solo SU3500 (1.40GHz)
RAM: upto 4GB DDR2
HDD: 250GB/320GB/500GB SATA
GPU: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Weight: 1.6 Kgs
Screen size: 13.3 inches
Other features: ethernet, wifi, web-cam
Price: starting at US $1600