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Asus has brought in two new gaming PCI Express graphics cards for our PC gamers: An nVidia-powered Asus EN7950GT and an ATI-equipped EAX1950XTX. Both cards feature Asus-specific innovations such as the Splendid video enhancement technology, which boosts contrast and colors during the video or DVD playback to closely match the picture quality of a high-end TV on your PC monitor.

Moving on to specifics, the EN7950GT uses an nVidia GeForce 7950GT graphics processing unit (GPU) running at a clock speed of 550MHz and uses high-speed 512MB DDR3 memory running at 700MHZz. The 7950GT GPU is up there with the best graphics card in the market, boasting 8 vertex shaders, 24 pixel shaders and a texture and pixel fill-rate that’s sufficient to play the latest DirectX 9-standard games in high detail settings.

But if you need even more power, you might want to opt for the Asus EAX1950XTX. It uses an ATI Radeon X1950XTX GPU clocked at 650MHz and has 512MB of DDR4 memory running at an amazing 1GHz (the first for a graphics card).

Plus, it has 48 pixel shaders, 8 vertex shaders and a whole host of other goodies, including 64-bit high dynamic range rendering that supports both blending and anti-aliasing.

The EAX1950XTX looks meaner too – it has a huge, enclosed copper heat sink with active cooling, to maximize heat dissipation whilst keeping noise at a bare minimum. The Asus EN7950GT costs $312 while the EAX1950XTX costs $545.

Read [Asus]

Samsung along with LG and Acer were all strong-hold Blu-Ray players. We has recently seen Acer and LG try to develop dual Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drives and now Samsung has seemed to lessen their devotion.

The Korean company has added an HD-DVD player (and possibly recorder) on their M55 notebook computers—the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch widescreen notebook. Other notebook specs include a 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7600 Go graphics card, 120GB hard drive, 802.11 a/b/g wireless connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0, inputs and outputs galore, including HDMI, and powered by an Intel T2500 Core Duo processor.

Is the format battle already dieing down?

Read [Pocket Lint] Via [EngadgetHD]

Steve Jobs just finished Apple’s keynote presentation at the WWDC. The first major announcement was the introduction of the highly-anticipated Mac Pro. The new Mac Pro, is a quad Xeon, 64-bit desktop featuring two new Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

The new Mac Pro features the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processor, is up to twice as fast as the Power Mac G5 Quad and features two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, each with 4MB of shared L2 cache and independent 1.33 GHz front-side buses and 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered memory. The computer can handle 4 separate hard drive, adding up to 2 TB of storage and support for two optical drives to simultaneously read and/or write to CDs and DVDs (no word on Blu-ray yet). Every Mac Pro includes three full-length PCI Express expansion slots and one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot. The front panel of the Mac Pro includes a FireWire 800 port, a FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports with additional FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and three USB 2.0 ports on the back panel. Mac Pro also includes dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, optical digital input and output, analog audio input and output, and optional built-in support for AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of video memory, providing built-in support for dual-displays and Apple’s 30-inch Cinema HD Display.

The Mac Pro is shipping today with the standard prebuilt configuration, including two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors and priced at $2,499 (US).

The Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

• two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors


• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory expandable up to 16GB


• NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM


• 250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s) hard drive running at 7200 rpm


• 16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)


• four PCI Express slots: one double-wide graphics slot and three full-length expansion slots


• ships with Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard

In addition to the standard configuration, the Mac Pro offers more than 4.9 million build-to-order options including: two 2.0 GHz or 3.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors; up to 16GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory; up to four 500GB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm; up to two 16x SuperDrives with double-layer support; ATI Radeon X1900 XT and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics cards, both with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM; AirPort Extreme module, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module; Apple USB Modem; Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple wireless Mighty Mouse; Mac OS X Server Tiger; Apple Xsan; and Apple Fibre Channel PCI Express Card. Complete build-to-order options and pricing are available at www.apple.com/macpro. 

After yesterday’s clue of “is it red, green, or blu?”, Sony took the wraps off the world’s first Blu-ray Disc enabled notebook computer the VAIO AR. 

The VAIO AR will come in two different configurations: Premium and Standard. The AR Premium version plays Blu-ray Disc high-definition content, so you can enjoy movies in full 1080p HD resolution with a 17-inch WUXGA 1080p (1920 x 1200) widescreen display and uses Sony’s XBRITE Hi-Color LCD technology. It will also have an HDMI output to send to your even larger screen. This is also the first laptop announced with the ability to record to Blu-ray in 1080 resolution. The notebook will have an Intel Core Duo chip and run MS Windows Media Center Edition. A NTSC tuner is built in processed by the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 256 MB graphics card The AR series also incorporates a camera and microphone allowing users to chat online with friends and family.

The AR Standard model will start at about $1,800, while the AR Premium Blu-ray Disc enabled model will go for a whopping $3,500 (in comparison the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 HD-DVD notebook sells for $2999.99). Both models are expected this summer. The Premium model will be shipped with the Sony Pictures Entertainment Blu-ray Disc release, “House of Flying Daggers,” providing a high-definition experience on the PC right out of the box, thanks for the $20 freebie.

Read [Sony Press Release]