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NewsBacklight Manufacturers: LED Prices to Drop 40-50% in 2009

Posted 11/14/08 at 06:07:06 PM by Andy Salisbury

Major notebook vendors like Dell and Apple are going to have a much easier time delivering those beautiful LED backlit screens in the near future, as the price of LEDs are projected to go down by 50%.

While the amount of notebooks that actually had LED backlighting in them was only 5-6% in the first three quarters of this year, that’s expected to shoot all the way up to 25% during this fourth quarter. Even still, it’s projected that up to 40% of notebooks will have LED backlighting in 2009.

At the current rate, it looks like LED backlighting will be standard sometime real soon. That’s a bright future that we look forward to.

Comments: 9
TAGS: apple, dell, laptop, hardware, led, cheap

Features$800 Budget PC Buyer’s Guide -- Updated Prices and Parts For October 2008

Posted 10/30/08 at 11:00:00 AM by Benson Hong

As some of you may recall, we featured a Budget Badass Buyer’s Guide at the beginning of the month to provide some guidance to those looking for solid performance at what we, Maximum PC, would consider to be a reasonable price. We read your responses to the build and many felt that $1500 was a bit over what the typical user would consider “budget.” So, we took it a step further and created a Budget PC below the $1500 mark. In fact, we even dropped it under $1000. At $800, we couldn’t quite figure out if it would even be possible to construct a PC that could play the latest games or even do some basic photo-manipulation in Photoshop. We stepped up to the challenge and built this Budget PC and put it to the test against our hardcore, $5000 machines to see how they match up.

Since we are still in the process of assembling the rig, benchmarks have yet to be run. For now, we give you our parts list. Check back soon for the results from our tests!

Comments: 52
TAGS: budget, hardware, build a pc, cheap, lean machine, buyer's guide, price guide, parts guide, budget pc, cheap pc

NewsQuad-Core CPUs Fall Below $200 as Intel Slashes Prices

Posted 10/21/08 at 04:08:08 PM by Andy Salisbury

Now that you’re playing the waiting game with your fancy new 30” monitor, why not wait for your processor upgrade as well? Price cuts on certain Intel quad-core and dual-core processors are on their way for desktops and servers.

Starting on October 19, 2008 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 and Q6600 will be priced at $193 and $183, drops of 14 percent and 5 percent respectively. The only question you’ve got to ask yourself is whether or not you want a chip with two cores and a higher clock or four cores with a lower clock.

The price on the Intel E7300 has gone from an already low $133 to $113, wih the E2220 and the E2200’s following suit dropping to $74 and $64,

At this rate, you’ll be able to build a rig for almost nothing!

Comments: 2
TAGS: intel, hardware, Processors, cheap, economy

NewsLarge-Size LCDs Plummeting in Cost. Is It Time to Splurge on That 30" Display?

Posted 10/20/08 at 05:54:08 PM by Andy Salisbury

Thanks to everybody’s favorite economy, the prices of large-size LCD monitors are on the way down again. After stabilizing for about a month, a lower than expected demand is putting pressure on monitor vendors to drop their prices.

After October prices are expected to drop 5-7%, with that trend continuing in the future. Large financial challenges are expected for the fourth quarter of 2008.

So if you’ve been waiting around to pick up a fancy 30” display, just wait a bit longer and you’ll get the price you’ve always wanted! If you’ve already picked up a 30” display, why not snag another? If you’ve already got three 30” displays, then Al Gore, I’m going to have to ask you to get back to work, sir.

Comments: 3
TAGS: monitors, hardware, cheap, economy

NewsPrice, Specs of EA's Affordable Crysis Warhead PC Revealed

Posted 09/09/08 at 07:00:03 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Games like Crysis prove to be an acid test for game hardware because of their insatiable hunger for computer resources. Although these hi-fi games are a visual treat, they are at times blamed for hastening the demise of PC gaming by making it an expensive hobby.

But Crytek, EA, Nvidia and UltraPC have joined hands to build a Crysis Warhead-ready PC – capable of running the upcoming game in high spec at a smooth 30 frames per second, which will help them debunk the notion that one needs to spend thousands of bucks on a gaming PC.

The Warhead PC will feature an Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 @2.66GHz, Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB graphics card, G31 mATX, 2GB memory and 250GB hard drive. The price of the machine has been revealed to be a very reasonable $699. All said, the aesthetics are bland and might not appeal to eclectic gamers.

Interested parties can sign-up for updates, and subsequently, pounce on the rig when it appears along with the game on September 16th, 2008.

Comments: 17
TAGS: nvidia, EA, Crytek, gaming rig, rigs, cheap, cysis, warhead, ultrapc, affordable

News60GB OCZ SSD Debuts on Newegg at a Highly Discounted Price

Posted 09/09/08 at 02:14:55 AM by Pulkit Chandna

SSDs with a 64GB storage capacity fetched close to a grand last year. But their outrageous prices have become subdued with the passage of time. Now, if you act quickly, OCZ’s brand new Core V2 OCZSSD2-2C60G 2.5” 60GB SSD could be yours for $240 – approximately $4/GB. The SSD boasts read speeds of 170MB/sec and write speeds of 98MB/sec. It also features a built-in USB 2.0 port for firmware updates, and can serve as a replacement for your notebook’s HDD.

The OCZSSD2-2C60G SSD is only available on NewEgg at the moment. Although the actual price of this SSD is supposed to be $299, OCZ is offering a sizable rebate worth $60 under an offer that will last until 18th September, 2008. In fact, the rebate is applicable on other OCZ SSD’s as well.

Comments: 7
TAGS: notebook, storage, HDD, ocz, hardware, Newegg, ssd, online store, cheap, discount

NewsiSuppli Parses iPhone 3G, Estimates Production Cost to be $174.33 Apiece

Posted 07/17/08 at 02:44:32 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Research firm iSuppli has released its official iPhone 3G production cost estimate. According to its estimates, a sum of $174.33 is spent on manufacturing an iPhone 3G unit. There is a huge possibility that some of you might have stumbled upon a similar story during the iPhone-imbued month of June.

Actually iSuppli had just roughly interpolated the iPhone’s production cost back then, whereas this happens to be its official estimate. The research firm revealed that iPhone 3G’s production cost is a substantial $52 less than the 8GB version of its 2G predecessor. iSuppli construes the huge decline in production costs to be part of Apple’s strategy of making iPhone globally acceptable.

Comments: 0
TAGS: apple, phone, cheap, price, iphone 3g, issupli, estimate, cost

NewsRumor: Lenovo Readying G-Series IdeaPads for Netbook Market

Posted 07/16/08 at 02:43:12 PM by Pulkit Chandna

It is safe to assume that PC manufacturers like Lenovo and Dell, who are not currently surfing the netbook wave, are busy hatching plans to make a dent in the nascent segment. Lenovo happens to be one of the most noticeable absentees but it will make its presence felt soon with its new G-series of IdeaPad products.

According to DigiTimes, the G-series will target entry-level and netbook markets. The website further claims that the first notebook in the G-series will be the 14.1 inch G340 that will be powered by Intel’s brand new Centrino 2.

Lenovo can be rest assured that its low-cost offerings will have to contend with netbooks from manufactures like Asus, MSI, Acer and HP who will surely give it a very hostile welcome.