Intel Interview, DVD Burning, Memory & More

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, June 08, 2004, 06:41 PM EDT

Greetings HotHardware fans! How is everyone doing today? I sure hope you're all doing well! All of the members of the H.H. crew are working with some tasty new hardware at the moment, so we should have quite a bit of fresh content for you in the coming days. Rob's got a couple of new 5900 XTs on the bench, Jeff's been burning some DVDs on a new drive from Plextor, and Jay's messing around with the first SATA optical drive to arrive in the lab. Tom's got something new for the Athlon XP on tap, I've got Asus' Socket 939 K8T800 Pro running benchmarks right now, and Dave just got some top secret stuff in as well. Chris and Rudy should also be pitching in with some goodies too, so stay tuned! There's lots of goodness on the way! For now though, it's time for another healthy serving of hardware news...here goes...

Interview with Intel's Thomas Loza - High Definition Audio @ Sudhian:

"At IDF 2003, Intel announced AC'97's evolutionary successor; dubbed High Definition Audio. Formerly, HD Audio was only known as Azalia and was to launch with Grantsdale. As the name implies, HD Audio is a new standard for onboard audio that allows playback of audio at 32 bit/192 KHz (with proper codec support). This is a definite improvement over AC'97's 20 bit/48 KHz. To support the high level of audio, bandwidth for HD Audio is at 48 MB/s per SDO, 24 MB/s per SDI, which is a significant upgrade over AC'97's 11.5 MB/s max."

ASUS DRW-0804P DVD Burner @ Viper Lair:

"Performance is where ASUS has put a lot of effort into the drive, and it shows up in the results. The ASUS drive took the lead in most categories, from CD reading to DVD writing. In the CD arena it is moderately faster than most of the other drives with its biggest improvement being in the CD Writing and ReWriting performance."

Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL Pro Series Memory @ ExtremeMHz:

"The XL series is a major step in the right direction in order to achieve a higher level of performance from DDR memory. The lower latencies do really play a major role in overall system performance, and they show in our test results. Don't be fooled by the fact that they are PC3200 modules. They perform just as well, and in most cases, better than most higher rated memory modules on the market and should be considered by those looking to achieve a higher level of performance."

Gigabyte K8NSNXP (Socket 754) @ NeoSeeker:

"Gigabyte is no stranger to the computer industry nor to our test lab. One of Gigabyte's strengths as a company is that they churn out consistent products which makes them one of our top choice when it comes to a recommending a product for the end user. Gigabyte was one of the few manufacturers that produced a Nforce 3 150 based board- the K8NNXP which we reviewed here. It was a board with every feature known under the sun but the price tag reflected that and it was because of the necessity of having to include many extra chips onboard that swayed manufacturers to go with K8T800 from VIA. Today we take a look at their NForce 3 250 based K8NSNXP."

Ok, that's just about going to do it folks. I have to go and get dinner started! The little lady will be home shortly...

Tags: Intel, memory, DVD, Interview, MeMo, view, burning, IE, BU, burn

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com