Ars.Technica - end of October Pentium 4 roll out delayed?

Intel's troubles seem to be far from over.  Still smarting from the embarrassment of having to recall the mighty 1.13 Gig Pentium III it now appears that the Pentium 4 is following suit, and is very likely to miss it's planned release date at the end of October.  At least two PC manufacturers have been told to expect delays.  Intel are sticking resolutely to the line that "Pentium 4 has been scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter, and that remains unchanged."  Hmmm...

Read the full story at Ars.Technica.com

The BP6 is dead?  Long live the VP6!

ABIT's BP6 delivered high-end performance at low-end prices, and gave many people (including me) their introduction to SMP computing.  Despite being unable to run dual Pentiums and the latest 0.18 core Celerons (even after the best efforts of PowerLeap), the BP6 is still able to form the backbone of a powerful system at a budget price.  My own PC uses a BP6, and you can check the spec here

A lot of effort has gone into persuading the BP6 to run with the new core Celerons and Pentiums, but with only very limited success (a single Pentium III will run and overclock very nicely thank you, but that kind of defeats the object of having a dual CPU board, doesn't it?)

So the rumours earlier this year that Abit were working on a successor to the BP6 raised a lot of interest.  Well wait no longer - the VP6 has arrived.  With dual FC-PGA sockets, 66/100/133MHz FSB clock, 4X AGP, Ultra DMA 66/100, VIA chipset, SoftMenu™ III, 2 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting Ultra DMA 33/66/100(up to 4 HDD devices), 2x USB Connectors, on board USB header for two extra USB channels, ATX form factor, AGP slot, 5 PCI slots, and hardware monitoring - have a look at the full specifications here 

Abit's press release

If this has whetted your appetite for dual processing on a shoestring you can find out a lot more about the BP6 from the gurus at BP6.com

If you've overclocked your PC then you'll know that heat can be a major problem.  Intricate cooling rigs are the norm, but if you want to try something a little more exotic then dip your toe into the murky waters of liquid cooling.....take a peek at the CPUfx Z3 Series Liquid Cooled Heatsinks review

At least some Aussies are giving the Olympics a good ignoring.  Bruce at InsaneHardware.com has been having a look at Creative's latest bid to stay top of the heap as far as sound cards are concerned.  Here's an idea of what they thought of it :

"The Platinum is more than your average soundcard, and it allows you to process simultaneous audio effects in real-time for the highest quality recording, playback, and the most immersive gameplay. With support for multiple speakers, surround sound as well as many other audio technologies, it is a card of high definition and power that immerses you in it's wake."

Read all the details here

A dual Pentium III motherboard that should be an overclocker's dream.  Here's a snip of the article -

"MSI adds a few more gems including voltage tweaks for CPU1 and CPU2 (independently) and FSB speed adjustments. The only difference between the three versions of the 694D is the flavor and quantity of the IDE controller(s). The "Pro" comes with the standard dual channel ATA66 controller supplied by the VIA chipset, the "Pro-A" adds an Ultra100 ATA100 controller from Promise, and finally, the "Pro-AR" adds IDE RAID via an integrated Promise FastTrak100 controller...."

Read the full article here

Anandtech - 1.13GHz P III recalled

It seems as if Intel have managed to shoot themselves in the foot yet again.  Racing with AMD to release the first 1 Gig chip, they apparently rolled out the 1.13 Gig Pentium III before it was ready, and then ran into so many problems that they had to rapidly take it back off the market.....

Here's what Anandtech had to say :

"Feeling the pressures of AMD, it seems like Intel was coerced into thinking that releasing a 1.13GHz Pentium III, although not completely ready, would give them something to compete against the upcoming 1.1GHz Athlon."

Firstly the much heralded i820 chipset, produced exclusively to support the new 133MHz Pentium IIIs, had to have it's launch delayed due to stability difficulties.  And then the problems really started; the i820 needed Rambus RDRAM, at a considerably higher price than SDRAM (indeed 133MHz SDRAM can now be had for virtually the same price as 100MHz RAM, and the market price for both is generally falling)...

To counter the RDRAM issues Intel employed an MTH (Memory Translator Hub) to enable the use of SDRAM in i820 based motherboards - unfortunately the hubs also ran into snags which hit them with major performance penalties.

Putting the crown on Intel's woes was the failure of some early release 1.13 P IIIs.  Looks like they may have pushed the core a bit too hard (basically selling a retail chip that's already overclocked).  At the moment Intel are saying the 1.13 Gig chip won't re-appear for at least a couple of months.  In the meantime at least they've got the Pentium 4 to look forward to - provided that they've got this one right of course!

Read the in depth article here

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