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No BS Podcast #87: The Zombie Defense Initiative Edition

Tom Edwards — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:25:18 -0600

Zombies. The best weapons to use against them. Where to hide from them. Is zombie middle management a good career path? We tackle these important isues--and all the latest tech news!--in this week's podcast. Join the podcast gang as we answer your tech questions, take a trip to the Lab, and get another dose of Gordon Mah Ung's Rant of the Week!

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

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Alienware Announces CrossFireX Dual-3870 Gaming Notebook

Paul Lilly — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:20:44 -0600

In a first for Alienware, the company has introduced a CrossFireX-capable gaming notebook for mobile gamers looking to pack some added heat (figuratively, though likely literally as well) in time for the holiday gaming season. Wealthy fraggers can outfit the new M17 with a pair of ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 3870 videocards for plenty of pixel-pushing power on the notebook's 17-inch WXGA+ or optional WUXGA widescreen display.

"By incorporating the all-out performance of CrossFireX graphics and quad-core processing into Alienware's award-winning notebook lineup," says Frank Azor, executive vice-president for Alienware's Product and Marketing Group, "the M17 delivers an impressive feature set at a price point that doesn't break the bank."

Gamers can also double up on storage with up to 640GB of hard drive space in a RAID 0 array (2x320GB), or up to 1TB in RAID 0 for those willing to drop down to a 5400RPM spindle speed (2x500GB), enough to hold 250,000 songs according to Alienware. Other specs and options include Intel Core 2 Duo, Quad, and Extreme processor support, PM45 chipset, up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, RAID 1 support, ATSC HDTV tuner, Blu-ray optical drive, three USB 2.0 ports, eSATA port, WiFi, and other goodies.

The hardware comes wrapped in a "Stealh Black" soft matte finish bearing Alienware's logo and trademark aesthetic flair. But the real surprise is in the price. A base configuration starts at a comparatively modest $1,400, with less than a $2,000 investment required for a configuration consisting of a Core 2 Duo processor, dual-videocards, and 3GB of DDR3 memory on a 1920x1200 HD display.

Surprised? Hit the jump and sound off.

No BS Podcast #82: The Evacuate the Building! Edition

Tom Edwards — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:25:14 -0500

The podcast gang manages to get back to Maximum PC world headquarters after a forced evacuation to bring you a superspecial all-listener-question edition of the No BS Podcast. Join us as we supply answers to your tech questions.

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Rumor: Thousands of Diamond Multimedia Cards May be Defective

Paul Lilly — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:35:12 -0500

The timing couldn't be worse on this one for ATI, who has crawled its way back into contention with Nvidia's best silicon, and received a further consumer boost while enthusiasts remain weary over Nvidia's GPU problems. Now the rumor mill is spinning in ATI's direction, and citing "industry sources," TG Daily says that Diamond Multimedia have have shipped upwards of 20,000 defective HD 3800 series videocards. That's a lot of GPUS.

But it gets even worse. According to the rumor, Diamond Multimedia knew about the problem all along but decided not to pull the faulty cards from store shelves. Allegedly all HD 3850 512MB cards shipped between January and July suffer the manufacturing defect, while a "substantial number" of HD 3870 512MB and X2 videocards also show signs of poor soldering and integrated memory problems.

The issue supposedly came to light when Alienware returned its graphics cards it had purchased from Diamond Multimedia after finding failure rates to the tune of 10 percent, or so the sources say. Seemingly giving the rumor some merit, TG Daily claims Bruce Zaman, CEO of Diamond Multimedia, confirmed that there has been an isolated issue "with one vendor."

Sound familiar anyone?

AMD Releases a Pair of Beefy Workstation Graphics Cards

Paul Lilly — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:30:48 -0500

We'd all love to run a pair of 4870 X2 videocards, but for certain workstation tasks, these gaming-centric videocards would prove inappropriate. For those who put work before play, AMD today introduced two new workstation cards, one at each end of the performance spectrum.

Taking its place on the high rung, AMD's new flagship FirePro V8700 is based on the 4800 series with 800 stream processors. The company claims the V8700 is about 40 percent faster than its previous flagship offering. The card comes with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and sports a total bandwidth of 108.8 GB/s. Two DisplayPorts and a single dual-link DVI interface round out the feature-set.

On the lower end, the FirePro V3750 drops the stream processors down to 320 and comes with a more conservative (that's a nice way of saying 'much lower') 256MB of GDDR3, resulting in a bandwidth of 22.4 GB/s.

Both the V8700 and V3750 will be available sometime this quarter with an MSRP of $1,499 and $199 respectively.

Visiontek Radeon HD 4850

Will Smith — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:00:00 -0500

Last month, we spent a ton of time talking about the efficiency and overall pixel-pushing prowess of ATI’s new GPU, so we won’t waste much ink on the subject here. Suffice it to say, the 4850 delivers enough power to drive your sweet, new 22-inch monitor at its native resolution.

The card’s silicon is equivalent to that of previous-gen high-end cards. It’s equipped with 512MB of GDDR3 memory running at 993MHz. Unlike the Radeon HD 4870 boards (which cost $100 more), the 4850 doesn’t sport GDDR5 (GDDR5 transfers twice as much data per clock cycle as GDDR3). The upshot? The HD 4850 has the slowest memory interface of any card in the current generation, and benchmarks show that—especially at high AA/anisotropic filtering levels.

Full review after the jump!

No BS Podcast #76 The Podcast of Olympian Proportions Edition

Tom Edwards — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:12:05 -0500

The podcast gang goes for the gold this week, bringing you all the latest tech news. First off, Norm takes a break from his pommel horse practice to talk about Nehalem and our exclusive interview with John Carmack.

We also answer your tech questions! On this episode, we discuss whether you should defrag your SSD drive, what mobo gives you the best bang for your buck, the best way to transport your PC--and much, much more. Gordon Mah Ung also takes the floor for a few minutes to supply us with another Rant of the Week!

Don't forget! There's still time to enter our Win a Dream Date with Norm competition. To qualify, send a song, photo collage, or video to maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com explaining why you want to spend the day with Norm. The winner will enjoy a delicious chaperoned lunch with online editor Norm and get an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the Maximum PC Lab. Don't delay, the deadline is August 14!

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

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Dell Issues Bios Update to Help With Nvidia GPU Trouble

Chris Moody — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:38:25 -0500

Dell has issued BIOS updates for their notebooks with the troubled Nvidia G84 and G86 GPUs that have been dying in notebook computers at a statistically higher rate is exacerbated with GPU temperature fluctuations. If the GPU fails, you may see intermittent symptoms during early stages such as: multiple images, random characters, lines on the screen, or just plain no video. As Dell points out if you are already experiencing the issues you see above the BIOS update won’t fix them. Your GPU is on its way out.

Dell’s statement is pretty serious since it lays the blame right at Nvidia’s doorstep saying the higher rate of failures are because of a weak die/packaging material set.

Dell says it will provide support for customers “who have experienced GPU failure according to the terms of the system warranty”. In other words if you didn’t get the extended warranty and it’s after the standard one year warranty your S.O.L on your GPU, but I wouldn’t let that stop you from beating on their door. It may not get you anywhere but at least it keeps them from forgetting that these things are out there and causing problems.

What do you think? Is Nvidia in trouble with these thermally sensitive notebook GPUs?