Posted 10/14/09 at 11:30:25 AM by Paul Lilly

SanDisk on Tuesday announced that it has begun shipping flash memory cards based on the company's X4 flash memory technology. Chips built using the new technology hold four bits of data in each memory cell, or twice as many as the cells in conventional multi-level cell (MCL) NAND chips, the company said.

"The development and commercialization of X4 technology represents an important milestone for the flash storage industry," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief operating officer, SanDisk. "Our challenge with X4 technology was to not only deliver the lower costs inherent to 4-bits-per-cell, but to do so while meeting the reliability and performance requirements of industry standard cards that employ MLC NAND."

SanDisk called the shipment of X4 memory a "necessary evolution" for the industry, noting that the technology will result in a cost advantage for consumers.

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Posted 08/13/09 at 08:30:00 AM by Paul Lilly

AMD today adds to its Phenom processor line with a new flagship part, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. The new chip updates the company's Dragon platform, which combines a Phenom II CPU with an ATI Radeon 4870/4890 graphics card and 790GX-based motherboard.

We're told the silicon in the X4 965 BE is unchanged from the X4 955 BE, so you're essentially looking at a clockspeed bump with a slightly higher TDP. Specifically, the 45nm chip comes clocked at 3.4GHz and contains 6MB of L3 cache, and 8MB of total cache (2MB total L2 per processor). And because it's a 'Black Edition' part, the new CPU is unlocked.

AMD also tells us that its own internal testing has shown the X4 965 BE to be a better overclocker than the previous 955, which isn't always the case when releasing a faster-clocked processor built on the same architecture. We currently have one of these chips in our Lab, so look for our own performance impression in the very near future.

Best of all for the AMD faithful, AMD has set an MSRP of $245 for the 965, the same official MSRP the 955 previously held..

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Posted 11/11/08 at 02:00:53 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I built my computer about a month ago—it’s nothing special. I’m running an Intel Pentium D 820 on an Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard. For a videocard, I’m rocking a BFG 9800 GTX.

I stumbled upon the System Information at the bottom-left corner of the Nvidia Control Panel recently. When I clicked it, I took note of the plethora of information on the 9800 GTX. What caught my eye was the very last line: BUS: PCI Express x4. That seems off, given that my card uses an x16 interface. What gives?

—Juan Campos

Check out Juan's answer, after the jump!

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Posted 03/26/08 at 11:02:28 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Does the $235 "fixed" B3 Phenom have enough horsepower to beat Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9300?

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