Items tagged with analysis
The retail sales of electronics and appliances this summer should have a modest increase over last year, according to IBM's analytics-based forecast. The sales are predicted to increase 4 percent - $953 million - in June, July and August. June July August 3-month total 2009 (actual) $7.791 $7.740 $8.131 $23.662 2010 (forecast) $8.034 $8.069 $8.512 $24.615 IBM produced the forecast using "statistical and analytical software" that looks at long-term sales trends and seasonal peaks. The data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau's survey of retailers whose primary business is the sale of electronics and appliances - that includes, among other things, televisions, cell phones, computers, radios/stereos,...
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Serial Attached SCSI or "SAS" as it is commonly known, has been around for a while but it certainly hasn't taken off, especially in the Desktop space, like Serial ATA (SATA). GamePC, one of our favorite places for serious technical analysis and a highly underrated site, takes a look at a pair of Seagate SAS drives and compares them to WD's 10K RPM Raptor drives. Of course the 15K RPM SAS drives rip up the Raptors in RAID 0 testing but then again the older 74G Raptor models were used (for-shame!). Regardless, there's good data here for consideration in your next RAID setup. "Today at GamePC, we've taken our first real look at Serial...
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For the past few years, Intel's desktop processors have been playing second fiddle to AMD's Athlon 64 in a number of ways. Both single and dual-core variants of the Athlon 64 have been at the top of most benchmark charts essentially since their introduction, and AMD's processors have been more energy efficient as well. Conversely, since the introduction of the Prescott core, Intel's processors have earned a somewhat notorious reputation for running hot and consuming more than their fare share of power. This scenario has played out since September of 2003, when AMD first released the Athlon 64 FX-51. But it all ends today. A while back Intel announced that they would be abandoning...
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ATI has another driver release ready before the months end, bringing the latest Catalyst version to 6.6, and also bring some improvements to the use of Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering. TweakTown has the usual performance comparisons for the release, comparing it to Catalyst 6.5 in a few different benchmarks. "We weren't too sure if a new Catalyst driver version was coming this month but they ended up delivering and ATI has produced quite as useful driver for the lovers of AA and AF - although mostly for Radeon X1900XT(X) owners who love AA and AF." And in case you Nvidia fans haven't heard, version 91.31 of Nvidia's Forceware driver was released on the 23rd....
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Another driver release from ATI spawns another performance comparison for TweakTown. Along with the addition of Adaptive Anti-Aliasing, ATI promises some performance improvements in a couple of games. Probably not the games you were hoping for though. "Apart from the performance improvements you can see below, Adaptive Anti-Aliasing has been added to the Radeon 9550 and above models. Originally Adaptive AA, which is a feature which adjusts its detail level depending on the performance, was only seen in the X1000 series of cards." ...
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The recent v1.1 patch for Quake 4 has delivered support for Hyper-Threading and Dual-Core CPUs, however this feature is bound to the Windows operating system. Even so, Linux users can rejoice as the new patch appears to provide a boost in the games performance. "Even though the Linux port remains to support any multi-threaded functions, we were incredibly surprised with the significant performance boosts demonstrated by this game. We will continue to investigate the Quake 4 v1.1 findings we have encountered today and will continue to deliver additional reports permitting any substantial findings. On top of the possible performance boosts, there...
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We're now living in the year 2006, and that means ATI has begun releasing it's 6.x driver set. Today ATI Catalyst 6.1 is available for your downloading pleasure. Has ATI been focusing on fixing bugs, or have they been trying to raise performance as well? To answer that question, we also present you with TweakTown's ATI Catalyst 6.1 Performance Analysis. "As we enter 2006 we see the first Catalyst driver set for the New Year labeled as the 6.1s. These come out just in time for the release of the latest FutureMark benchmark application labeled 3DMark06 funnily enough."...
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Another driver release, another performance review. ATI has recently released their last driver set of the year, Catalyst 5.12. Today, TweakTown benchmarks the new Catalyst driver against last months version, and reports on some interesting results."As we near the end of the year, we see the final official Catalyst release from ATI under the 5 series name. Next year we will have the 6.1's and start all over again as long as ATI keep up with their promise for monthly driver releases, which has remained true for a long while now."...
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The folks at ArsTechnica have posted a pretty thorough analysis of the new XBox 360 that outlines several aspects of the newly launched console. If you've been wrestling with the idea of getting an XBox 360 now, or waiting to see what PS3 or Nintendo's Revolution look like this is certainly worth taking a look at.Overall the 360 does just about everything right, and feels like a step ahead for console gaming in general. Having the Marketplace to sell independent games and classics is a great feature, and making those games playable on Xbox Live is the icing on the cake. Everything about the interface is well thought out, it's easy to spend hours just ripping CDs and seeing what the system can...
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If you read our comprehensive review of ATI's new X1K Family of graphics cards, you know how we felt about ATI's new line-up at launch. If you haven't read our review, however, here's the gist of it. We thought ATI's X1K Family of products were a technological step forward, and at the high-end the Radeon X1800 XL and X1800 XT were competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GT and 7800 GTX in D3D applications, but in OpenGL based applications NVIDIA's counterparts had an advantage. This particular performance breakdown may be about to change though. ATI has recently posted a "HotFix" driver that addresses OpenGL performance. ATI claimed performance improvements in the neighborhood...
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We've had some big game releases this month, and today's release is... F.E.A.R.! From what I've heard, the game will take about 10 hours to get through(which I personally find disappointing), however it's supposed to be one incredible ride. In what seems to be becoming a popular trend, a patch has already been released for the game, less than a week(or day) after it's release. If you own the game, grab the patch, and if your still undecided on Monolith's new shooter, check back here tonight for some reviews. Enjoy the news! First stage of HTPC project proves tricky @ The Tech Report "This setup's existence has been suspended for many months between my intentions--to build a real HTPC for...
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Hey folks, just checking in here with another update before the weekend hits us. As for HotHardware news today, Andrew has reviewed the Dell Inspiron 6000(d). Also, Dave's post below gives you a little bit if info on the upcoming nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition board from ASUS, the P5ND2-SLI Deluxe. Enjoy! ASUS AX800XT/TVD 256MB (RADEON X800 XT P.E.) @ Hardware Zone "With the launch of ATI's X850 series, the honor of leading ATI's lineup has passed from the X800 XT P.E. to its X850 counterpart. Meanwhile, price and availability for the X800 XT P.E. has improved significantly. Find out why we think the ASUS AX800XT/TVD 256MB is an attractive option for those requiring a high-end performer with...
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Good morning everyone, the news front is moving at a fantastic rate. So, needless to say, we have a quiet the variety of fresh juice on tap this AM. I don't know about you, but I am planning on kicking back for a few minutes and indulging my hardware fetish... Here is your first shot for the day... BigBruin.Com Article: Monitors - LCD vs. CRT "As the technology has improved and the prices have come down, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitors have rapidly been replacing CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors on desktops around the world... The question is why choose LCD over CRT? There are several pros and cons to consider, and a few items will be considered in this Tech Tip."...
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As the old saying goes, "hindsight is 20/20". That is to say, if you were in the market for a new high end graphics card, back in early August, as a direct result of the launch of Id Software's much buzzed about title Doom 3, you may have opted to go the way of an NVIDIA product. For sure, with NVIDIA's obvious strength in the Doom 3 game engine, and subsequently the quickly emerging benchmarks that surfaced around the web, if you were placing bets on NVIDIA's new GeForce 6 series line-up, it was definitely a solid wager in that gaming scenario. Additionally, the Doom 3 game engine will probably power many a title in the coming year, so NVIDIA's scope of influence...
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