IBM claims world’s fastest processor with 5.2GHz z196 processor.

After a good lecture from the Prescott era, Chipzilla is getting its sweet stroll in the race for the fastest processor in the gigantic galaxy. Remember when the Pentium 4c 3.0GHz was what Intel said to be the fastest? Time sure flies. Now IBM, who has been under the radar after Apple migrated to Intel, recently announced that their 5.2GHz z196 processor is the fastest chip in the planet. I’m sure I’ve seen numbers far higher than that, from crazy enthusiasts like Kingpin, while fooling around with some liquid nitrogen.

However, IBM does it without those funky yet ‘seemed dangerous’ setup, as this is an enterprise chip which does it without those liquid nitrogen around. It’s a four-core slab that was manufactured using the outfit’s 45nm process technology. Numbers wise, 1.4 billion transistors, and the ability to handle more than 50 billion calculations per second. Sadly however, we have a number comparison from Fujitsu’s Venus CPU, and it can handle a staggering 128 billion instructions per second.

Sad news for you rich kids out there, this will not show up in the customization list of your next Alienware rig, so you won’t know if it runs Crysis max. Well I’m sure it will, but meh, just merely.

SOURCE via IBM

QUO maxQ2 Mac clone Computer is Liquid Cooled

QUO is going to release the new maxQ2 liquid-cooler Mac-clone computer that runs Mac OS X, Linux and Windows 7 natively. The new maxQ2 utilizes Asetek 550LC liquid-cooling system,featuring an integrated pump and copper cold plate connected to a 120mm heat exchanger.

The QUO maxQ2 is powered by Intel Core i7 3.6Ghz 6-core processor, 12GB of RAM, a 240GB SSD, a 1TB HD, and an NVIDIA GeForce 285 GTX GPU. The Asetek liquid-cooled system starts at $3765.

[asetek]

Acer Aspire easyStore H341 NAS

Acer introduces the Aspire easyStore H341 that gets better hardware. as the follow-up to the H340. Looks exactly like the H340, the new H341 pack Intel Atom D410 processor, 2GB of RAM, and ICH9R chipset, replacing Atom 230 on H340.

The easyStore H341 houses up to four hot-swappable hard drives offering up to 8TB of capacity. It has five USB ports and an eSATA connector. The NAS supports wake-on-LAN, DLNA, media straming and auto daily backup. The easyStore H341 runs Windows Home Server.

[acer]

AMD ATI FirePro V9800 Professional Graphics Card

AMD introduces a new professional graphics card, the ATI FirePro V9800, the latest addition to the FirePro family, which is the “powerful professional graphics card AMD has ever created”. The new card supports up to six monitors with ATI Eyefinity technology and six Mini DisplayPorts.
The new V9800 features 1600 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR5 memory. It sports hardware acceleration and support for advanced features of DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0, and support for stereo 3D capability, supporting active shutter glasses via the on-board 3-pin connector, as well as passive and auto-stereoscopic displays and projectors.

The ATI FirePro V9800 uses PCI Express 2.1 x16 interface and occupies two slots. The price is $3499.

[amd]

Corsair sails into gaming headset waters with noise-isolating HS1 cans

These days, Corsair seemed to want a slice of everything, or perhaps to show the world the greatness of their engineers. Started with buying NAND chips and making their own modules, Corsair entered the power supply market while fighting fiercely in the high performance ram market. Soon, they joined the chassis gang and SSD gang, and now they’re ready to join the gaming gadgets crowd.

“We set out to develop a headset with the performance that gamers demand, while also providing the pristine audio reproduction required for multi-channel movies and high bit rate music,” stated Jim Carlton, Vice President of Marketing at Corsair. “The Audio HS1 easily meets both these challenges.”

Their first member of the gaming peripheral lineup is a USB headset offering multichannel audio via 50mm drivers, a noise-isolating closed design, noise-cancelling and articulating mic, and inline volume and microphone mute controls. Aside from the larger than usual drivers, we’re not seeing anything particularly unique here, but that ethereal quality  component is rarely apparent on black and white fact sheets. Availability is said to be immediate, though our quick pricing investigation threw up only a UK pre-order for £84 ($129). So yeah, Corsair’s certainly pricing the HS1 as a premium product. Not sure who ‘oem’ them thought, if you get the joke. But it’s still a great sight to see good products bearing the triple sail logo.

Corsair Gaming Audio Series HS1 Key Features:

• Acoustically-tuned enclosures with oversized 50mm drivers
• Circumaural, closed-back design
• Replaceable memory foam ear pads with soft fabric covers
• USB Connection
• Dolby® Headphone technology provides multi-channel sound and improves audio quality to reduce listening fatigue
• Uni-directional noise-cancelling microphone on adjustable boom
• Extra-large inline volume and microphone controller that’s easy to grab during gameplay
• Control panel software allows you to customize the listening experience

SOURCE via Corsair

LaCie Minimus USB 3.0 Hard Drive

Alongside the Rikiki USB 3.0, LaCie also announced the Minimus USB 3.0 desktop hard drive that is bigger size than the Rikiki, yet still compact. The Minimus uses USB 3.0 interface and comes with 1TB of capacity. It has a tough aluminum casing like the Rikiki.

LaCie Backup Assistant is included for data backup on both Mac OS X and Windows. The 1TB Minimus is priced at $129.99.

[lacie]