AMD reduces Radeon HD 7970, 7950 and 7770 pricing

If youre looking at picking up one of AMDs fairly recently launched Radeon HD 7970, 7950 or 7770 graphics cards, but havent gotten around to it yet, then we have good news for you. AMD has finally decided to lower its prices to a somewhat more affordable level, especially in the case of the two high-end models.

The Radeon HD 7970 stands for the biggest price drop, of US$70 compared to the launch date and you can already pick up some cards for the new MSRP of US$479. This puts the Radeon HD 7970 at a US$20 lower price point than Nvidias GeForce GTX 680, although were not sure if this is enough to sway users over to the Radeon HD 7970.

A US$50 saving is what youll be seeing for the Radeon HD 7950 which has come down from US$449 to US$399. This will likely make some of the overclocked Radeon HD 7870 cards a tough sell; especially models priced in excess of US$370. That said, it seems like some of AMDs partners are dropping the prices here as well, without any official word on the matter from AMD, as we spotted Radeon HD 7870 models going for as little as US$330.

Finally the Radeon HD 7770 has been reduced by US$20, from US$159 to US$139 making it a pretty attractive option to the Radeon HD 6850 which is retailing at around the same price point these days and offering similar performance, albeit drawing more power.

The Radeon HD 7970 and 7950 will also come with three games for a limited time, as part of the three for free promotion. The games are Deus Ex: Human Evolution (including the Missing Link DLC), Dirt: Showdown (expected in May) and Nexuiz, a DX11 first person shooter (again expected in May). Presumably the games will be digital download only.

Source: Hardware Canucks

ASUS EN8800GTX Over 18K 3D Mark 06 Single Card

ASUS EN8800GTX is performing nicely on the sweet ASUS Striker Extreme Motherboard.First I have to push the FSB as much as I can, and this is about as far as anyboards can push a Kentsfield Processor:

378MHzFSB with Kentsfield

380MHzFSB with Kentsfield

And nice stuff from the ASUS EN8800GTX, no SLI yet, just single card gave over18,000 3D Mark 06:

18,220Single Card!

Card Clocks was at 945MHz Core, 1200MHz Memory...

AMD Rev. F Opteron In Mid 2006

Opteron 854 (Rev E)Rev. F OpteronOpteron 875Rev. F OpteronNo. of Cores1122Die Size106mm2126mm2194mm2220mm2L2 Cache Size41.4mm238.7mm282.8mm277.4mm2Transistors120M129M233M243MMemory FrequencyDDR-400DDR2-800DDR-400DDR2-800Memory Bandwidth6.4GB/s12.8GB/s6.4GB/s12.8GB/sCore Frequency2.8GHz?2.2GHz2.6GHzVDD1.35V?1.35V1.35VTDP95W?95W95W

ASUS enhance features on their laptops, desktops, netbooks and nettops for better Win 7 experience

Taipei, Taiwan, Oct 22, 2009 – ASUS today announced that a select group of its notebooks and Eee Series PCs—including the Eee PC™, Eee PC™ Touch, EeeBox PC and EeeTop PC—will feature exclusive enhancements that are designed to extend and improve the overall Windows 7 experience. The applicable ASUS notebooks, which will come installed with 64-bit versions of Windows 7, promise a level of performance and security over and beyond that of notebooks running previous versions of Windows—most notably up to 40%* faster bootups and server-level security with enhanced core protection.

All ASUS notebooks installed with Windows 7 will run 64-bit versions of the operating system. This allows the notebooks to fully utilize the vastly-higher RAM ceiling that 64-bit Windows 7 affords—up to 128GB—dramatically improving their multitasking capabilities and processing speeds. 64-bit Windows 7-equipped ASUS notebooks will also boot up up to 40%* faster than competing notebooks, thanks to FastBoot technology which shortens notebook boot times to as low as 30 seconds*.

The marriage of Eee Series PCs and Windows 7 is the ultimate expression of the Eee brand's "Easy, Excellent, Exciting" mantra. Windows 7-equipped Eee Series PCs allow users to enjoy near-instant access to the web and beyond with Fast Bootup Technology. They also feature Eee Docking or Eee Bar, user-friendly shortcut bars that give users direct and intuitive access to applications and web services, as well as ASUS @Vibe which serves as users' window to a world of web-based multimedia entertainment. Furthermore, ASUS WebStorage gives users additional online storage space, allowing them to easily backup and share their files.

Source: ASUS

ASUS Computers Installed with Windows 7

ASUS NotebooksF81Se / F83Se / F83T N60DP/ N61Vn/Vg/ N71Vn/Vg/ N81Vp/ N81VgG60Vx / G71Gx / G72GxUX30 / UX50K40AB / K40C / K50C / K40IJ / K40Ac / K50IJ / K40IN / K50IN / K60IJ / K70AB / K70AC / K51AC / K70IJ/K70IO U20A / U50A / U50Vg / U80A / U80V UL20 / UL30A / UL50A / UL50Ag / UL50Vg / UL50Vt / UL80VVX5 / F6VEASUS Desktop PCsCM5540 / CM5570 / CM1525 BM5220 / BM5320 / BM2220CG5270 / CG5285 / CG5290BM2320 / BM5240 / BM5265CP5140 / CS5120 / ES5000BM5365 / BP5220 / BP5265Eee Series PCsEee PC™ 1008HA / 1005HA / 1005HR Eee PC™ 1101HA / 1201HA / 1201NEee PC™ Touch T91MTEeeTop PC ET2002/ ET2002TEeeTop PC ET2203/2203TEeeBox PC EB1501/1502

Apple iTunes to take the 2nd spot in media player market soon

It appears that Apple could hardly get out of news these days. The latest one here is about their wildly popular iTunes software. Being increasingly popular, the Apple iTunes software is gaining on popularity and might soon over take RealPlayer to hold the No.2 position in the media player market. One of the major reasons on why the iTunes is climbing fast in popularity will probably be due to podcasting subscriptions, and their chic iTunes music store. "The popularity of iTunes as a streaming media player is undoubtedly related to the burgeoning popularity of podcasts; Apple was the first major player to jump on the podcast bandwagon, integrating a podcast directory into its iTunes Music Store and building podcast subscription features into the iTunes player."

App Store Subscriptions recurring your way soon

Expected to debut as one of the key features in iOS 4.3, the new digital billing service will be similar to In-App Purchases, as currently used in most apps in the App Store.

Subscriptions purchased from within the App Store will be sold using the same App Store billing system that has been used to buy billions of apps and In-App Purchases. Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.). Customers can review and manage all of their subscriptions from their personal account page, including canceling the automatic renewal of a subscription. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30 percent share that it does today for other In-App Purchases.

With regards to whether content may also be offered outside of this new billing mechanism, Apple CEO points out that publishers are free to offer content outside of the app. But if so, the same or better offer has to be given to subscribers of the app.

"Our philosophy is simple - when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," said Steve Jobs, Apples CEO. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app. We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers."

Besides providing customers an easy way to keep track of their subsription and ease of activation and billing, Apple is pushing this new App Store Subscriptions as 30% of the content providers revnue will go to Apple.

But for the ease of potential customers and the vast distribution power of the App Store, Im sure many content providers will submit to Apples demand in exchange for a potential 160 million iOS users around the globe.

Source: Apple

Amiga returns... with an $98 Android Tablet

Lo and behold, we received news from Bill McEwen that Amiga is introducing a seven inch tablet powered by Android 2.2 operating system. The price of the 7" Amiga Xpedio 7MTB is set at only $98, while the add-on USB keyboard and protective case raise the price to only $118.

The Amiga Xpedio 7MTB is powered by VIA Technologies WM8650 ARM chip ticking at 720MHz, 256MB LPDDR2 memory, 4GB embedded storage and of course, the multi-touch screen. In order to keep the price down, 7MTB comes with resistive two-point touch-screen. You can expand the storage up to 32GB locally via MicroSD/MemoryStick/MMC cards.

Besides the Xpedio 7MTB, Amiga also offers Xpedio 7 MT ($189) and Xpedio 10 MT($289), which also feature Samsung PV210 SoC with ARM Cortex-A8 processor ticking at 1GHz, 512MB LPDDR2 memory and 8GB of local storage, also expandable up to 32GB. 7MT and 10MT are both equipped with capacitive multi-touch display.

The manufacturer is stating that the preorder prices are good until November 11, 2011 with the delivery taking place before December 25, 2011.