AMD Athlon64 and Barton Processors / No. 71 PCSTATS Newsletter

As we wait patiently for AMD's latest AthlonXP incarnation based on the Barton core to arrive, it's hard not to get excited. After all, we know that in just a few months time, the Athlon64 will also be here! From what we've been hearing, March or April will be when the 64-bit processor is to be released (barring any more delays). The initial Athlon64 processors operate at 1.4GHz, as shown in this picture to the right, but that may not necessarily be the introductory speed consumers see.

New AMD motherboards are starting to have support for Barton processors through BIOS updates, a sign that the wait may soon be over.

K8 Athlon64 motherboards were shown in plentiful supply late last year, waiting only for the processor to be released before ramping up production. As if that isn't enough to look forward to, Intel still has Prescott up their sleeves... spring 2003 is looking very, very interesting. :)

Everyone is excited about the new nVidia nForce2 based motherboards hitting the streets now, and we have our review of the MSI K7N2-L loaded with benchmarks for you to read. As if that were not enough by itself, we're also bringing you a review of the DFI AD77 KT4000 motherboard you absolutely must read!! We really liked this board by DFI, and if you pair it with a nice Radeon 9700 or Geforce 4 Ti4600 you'll definitely want a good monitor to play UT2003 on. The Viewsonic P95f+B is a 19" aperture grilled flat face display that we were very impressed with. Retailing for a measly $320USD ($490CDN) if offers a heck of a value.

nVIDIA's original nForce chipset had lots of potential and made a lot of promises, but in the end it fizzled out big time. When nForce was announced the AMD chipset performance leader at the time was the SiS 735 chipset. The nForce was faster and more advanced, however after long delay the nForce eventually reached a market where the main competitor had now changed.Faced against the VIA KT266A chipset, the hype brought on by dual channel DDR was just that, hype. Performance was good, but it just couldn't compete with VIA's chipsets at the time. The question this time around is whether or not nVIDIA have learned from their mistakes.When the nForce2 was originally announced back in July of 2002, nVIDIA was hoping to steal a bit of ATI's thunder for the release of the 9700 Pro videocard which was announced a few days later. Consequently, the nForce chipset was delayed yet again, and eventually reached the markets in October, albeit in limited quantities. Now a days, you can get an nForce2 board from any of the large motherboard manufacturers easily.

Introduce a "new" display technology like LCD and suddenly everything which is based on a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) is old, obsolete, and totally uncool. Normally I'd be the one saying that, but when it comes to CRT's there have been some very good improvements to the technology which are keeping it up to date with its' anorexic counterparts. The Viewsonic P95f+B is a 19" CRT based around a "PerfectFlat" aperture grille mask screen. The display features a 0.25mm dot pitch at the center of the screen, and 0.27mm dot pitch towards the corners. Optimal resolution is 1600x1200 @ 87Hz, but the screen will go as high as 2048x1536 if you are lucky enough to use a videocard which will support that resolution.

Colin's Weekly Tech Tips
By: C. Sun	Digital Music, From Digital CD's
	Even though audio CD's store the music in digital format, most of the time the music you hear is analog. The reason behind this is, when the information is moving from the CD-ROM to your sound card it is first passed by a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) which can possibly degrade the quality of the sound you're listening to. Fortunately Win2k/XP also support digital reading of audio CD's. To enabled digital reading we'll have to change some of the CD-ROM settings in the device manager. Right click on the "My Computer" icon on the desktop and go to properties. From there click the "Hardware" tab and then the "Device Manager" button. Once the Device Manager window opens, expand the "DVD/CD-ROM drives" by clicking the + sign next to it. Next, double click on the CD drive which you use to listen audio CD's from. Once inside there select the "Properties" tab and check the box next to "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device". You may have to reboot your system for the changes to take effect.After that's done, all the CD's you listen to on your computer will no longer first be converted to analog before it reaches your ears.
Colin's Tips Archives \| The PCStats.com Forums

The Last Word: Colin had a good time chatting with many of you last week in the PCStats.com Forums. If you have any computer questions, make sure you post them this weekend so Colin, or one of our expert moderators can help you out. First timers can Join the PCStats.com forums for Free , right here.