Tim Sweeney and Andrew Richards debate the future of graphics hardware

GDC 2010: An Epic debate Part 1

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you get two very smart people, Tim Sweeney from Epic Games, and Andrew Richards from Codeplay, with diametrically opposed views together in the same room to talk about the future of graphics hardware? Easy, a debate. At GDC this year, that is exactly what SemiAccurate did, and through the magic of video cameras, you too can enjoy the spectacle.
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Eurocom launches the X8100 Leopard

Comes with dual HD5870’s or single GTX 480M

IF YOU’RE THE kind of person that doesn’t mind lugging around a 5.6kg/12.32lb 18.4-inch notebook – not taking the 220W power brick into account – just to have the bragging rights of owning what is potentially the most powerful notebook in the world, then The Eurocom X8100 Leopard is for you.
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Seamicro puts 512 servers in a 10U box

Virtual everything plus toruses

SEAMICRO IS A STARTUP that is attacking data center power use through a novel idea, optimizing hardware for a specific workload. For web serving workloads, the idea is simple, cram 512 Atom servers into a box with a virtual ‘shared nothing’ configuration.
Updated: Fixed wrong CPU speeds
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Kinect, the product formally known as Project Natal unveiled

New, smaller Xbox 360 coming this week

IT’S E3 TIME and Microsoft has unveiled the retail name for Project Natal as well as the product itself of course. Get used to Kinect as a new “word” in the world of controller free, motion and voice controlled gaming. Microsoft also unveiled its new, smaller and more feature rich Xbox 360 console which will hit retail later this week.
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eMachines ER1401 combines Athlon II Neo and Nvidia chipset

A blast from the past

IF YOU’VE BEEN longing for one last system with an AMD processor and a chipset from Nvidia, then the eMachines ER1401 is most likely not what you were hoping for. The ER1401 is similar in design to Acer’s Revo, but rather than using at Atom processor an ION graphics, this system has an Athlon Neo II processor and a GeForce 9200 chipset.
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Linpus shows off Tegra powered Linux TV

And a smartbook version of Linpus

YOU MIGHT VERY well have used one of Linpus’ Linux distributions without even knowing about it, as the company specializes in custom Linux installations for a wide range of solutions, least not netbooks. The company has also made some customized versions of Moblin, but its latest project is something that looks extremely interesting, a version of Linux for ARM based PCTVs.
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The best of the rest from Computex 2010

Some unusual and interesting things from the show

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO cover everything from a trade show like Computex, but in this article we thought we’d try to put together some of the interesting things we saw at the show. We’ve covered most of the big companies on their own, so here we’re going to try to cover some of the companies that aren’t so familiar. Read on for some useful gadgets, interesting pieces of hardware and some more unusual bits of kit.
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Leadtek shows off PCI Express box for your notebook

New hardware video encoder/transcoder card

LEADTEK WAS ONCE one of the big names in the graphics card industry and although the company is still selling graphics cards, including the highly lucrative Quadro products from Nvidia, the company has branched out into other segments over the years. This year Leadtek was showing off a couple of interesting products at Computex, one for notebook users and one for those that work with video files.
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Let’s not forget the H67 chipset

Integrated graphics support

ALTHOUGH NOT NEARLY as commonplace as P67 motherboards at Computex, we did spot some H67 boards as well. The peculiar thing is, at least as far as we are aware, Intel isn’t planning on doing any LGA-1155 processors without integrated graphics, so having two different chipsets doesn’t make that much sense, but then again, Intel doesn’t always make sense when it comes to product SKUs.
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P67 motherboard roundup

Warning: Final products might be totally different

WE DIDN’T FORGET to take some snaps of the P67 boards that were on display at Computex, but rather than doing a post here and there on the various boards, we figured we’d stick them all in one story. Just a word of warning, most of these boards are not the final product and most are mock-ups made for the show and some of them don’t even have the actual chipset fitted.
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ASRock and ECS first with two USB 3.0 host controllers

Different implementations, slightly different results

ONE FLAW WITH USB 3.0 is that you’re stuck with only a pair of ports around the back on your motherboard, but it seems like the motherboard manufacturers are getting ready to solve that problem for you. As we reported a couple of days ago, ASRock and ECS are using an internal pin-header, but both of the boards in question also feature two USB 3.0 host controllers.
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CPT talks eDP, shows off six screen demo

DisplayPort is coming, but it’s moving slowly

BACK IN MAY we told you about a bridge solution from Chrontel that turns an LVDS signal into a DisplayPort signal and we wondered why DisplayPort was taking such a long time to appear in devices. Apple is the only notebook manufacturer to date to use DisplayPort as well as eDP or Embedded DisplayPort on its entire range of notebooks. Today we got some answers from Chunghwa Picture Tubes.
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