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- Gigabyte 590SLI Mobo
- Epox 570 SLI Mob
- PC2-7200 DDR-2 RAM
- Gigabyte P965 Mobo
- Geforce 7900GT
- PCstats Weekly Tips
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Intel Quad Core Processor in '07
Hello,
At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco
this week it was announced that a quad-core desktop processor will be
unveiled in January 2007. The 65mn 'Kentsfield' Core 2 Quad CPU will
be preceded on November 16 by the 2.6GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700, a quad-core
CPU with 8MB total cache, operating on a 1066MHz FSB and spitting out 130W
of heat.  The
first kick at the 4-core can will see two physical silicon dies integrated
onto one CPU - or in other words two Core 2 Duo's side by side and forced
to communicate via the Front Side Bus. Not the most ideal
configuration when confronting bandwidth bottleneck issues, but the first logical
step towards one silicon / four core solutions. By the end of 2007,
45nm multi-core CPUs will be the norm from Intel.
Early analyst reports coming out of Taiwan are already looking towards
the initial Core 2 Quad processors' replacement, the 45nm 'Yorkfield' core. By Q3'07 the quad-core Yorkfield will be introduced, and with it support for a 1333MHz FSB, PCI Express 2.0, DDR3-1333 memory, and most importantly an L2 cache which is split between each pair of processors.
In other words each set of cores will communicate directly, which is a more efficient approach. At the present, it may be recommendable to eschew the first-generation quad-core QX7600 entirely, and possibly even the first Core 2 Quad's in anticipation of the 'Yorkfield' that is expected to follow this time next year. Given the impressive standing of the Core 2 Duo CPU right now, adopting a transitional quadzilla chip a few months from now may not be the best route to take in the long run... although the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 has already been benchmarked by Intel to illustrate select advantages over Core 2 Duo.
Fresh from the test bench today is PCSTATS
review of the Epox EP-MF570
SLI and Gigabyte
GA-M59SLI-S5 nForce 590 SLI motherboards. Core 2 Duo may be catching
the headlines, but socket Socket AM2 AMD Athlon64 platforms are still
nothing to sneeze at. With all new platforms on DDR-2 memory, you might
want to pop on over and check out this review of the new OCZ PC2-7200
memory, and the Asus EN7900GT
Geforce 7900 GT graphics card. Last but not least is look back at
the Gigabyte
GA-965P-DS3 P965 Express motherboard for Intel Pentium D and
Core 2 Duo.
We've posted a correction to last week's Tech
Tip below, along with a new one! Remember, PCSTATS Newsletter is now
archived, and completely available for online reference. Browse, or run a
search through over 200 archived PCSTATS
Newsletters!
Thanks for reading!
Max Page
Editor-in-Chief - PCSTATS
If you're looking for a top of the line gaming
system based on the AMD socket AM2 processor, it's almost guaranteed that
your motherboard chipset will be the nVidia nForce
590 SLI. If you're thinking about getting into the best AM2 has to
offer, the Gigabyte
GA-M59SLI-G5 motherboard is a pretty sweet starting point. Onboard the
GA-M59SLI-G5 'S-Series' motherboard you'll find a 7.1 channel Intel Azalia
compatible audio codec, dual Gigabit
network connections, a secondary Serial ATA
II/RAID controller, IEEE 1394a Firewire, three physical PCI
Express x16
graphics card slots, twin BIOS chips for redundancy, and a flurry of
other handy hardware devices. The boards' four DDR2
RAM slots will support a maximum of 16GB of
DDR2-400/533/667/800 memory in unbuffered ECC/non-ECC formats. Expansion
is taken care of with two PCI, two PCI Express x1, and three physical PCI
Express x16 slots (two x16 and one x8).Continue Here>>
The nice thing about computers is that if you do
your homework, you can buy yourself a very modular system from the start.
First, seek out something built on nVIDIA's
nForce 570 SLI chipset; it's not top of the line but offers good
value. The nvidia nForce 570 SLI is a single chipset AMD socket AM2
solution, and it's a little cash strapped for PCI Express lanes as
compared to the nVidia nForce 590 family. The Epox MF570
SLI has two PCI Express x16 slots for dual graphics cards, and will
support SLI, but with each videocard receiving 8 PCI Express
lanes each instead of
16. This is an AMD socket AM2 motherboard, supporting all
current 940-pin AMD Athlon64 X2. It's four 240-pin DDR2 memory slots
will accommodate up to 16GB of double-sided DDR2-800 memory in a dual channel
configuration.
Storage options are more varied than the new Core 2 Duo
motherboards offer; the Epox EP-MF570 SLI has two IDE channels.
Continue
Here>>
Overclocking is a ton of fun if you're
interested in getting into it.. but ask any seasoned overclocker about the
importance of good memory and they'll talk your ear off. OCZ's 2GB PC2-7200
Platinum XTC SLI Ready memory offers users an interesting mix of high
speeds and low latency. The 2GB kit has been rated to run up to 900 MHz
while keeping CAS Latency
timings of 4-4-3-15. The memory requires a stock voltage of 2.1V. The
DDR-2 modules come wrapped in OCZ's XTC (Xtreme
Thermal Convection) "heatspreaders", and it looks like the entire
package has been deep-fried in the chrome-plater! Continue Here>>
The future for Intel 's P965 chipset is a bright
one, particularly with Core 2 Duo
processors finally rolling out
the door (actually, physically so).  Aside from PCI Express
x16 videocard support, the Intel P965 chipset leads with a 1066 MHz
front side bus, a new 12.8GB/s 'Fast Memory Access' memory controller,
and a few other technologies we'll touch upon momentarily. Gigabyte's
GA-965P-DS3 motherboard offers a good mix of performance and value for
the remarkably proficient Core 2 Duo processor series, and for the
purposes of this review PCSTATS will be testing it with an Intel Core 2
Duo E6600 CPU - the
sweetheart of the bunch for its 2.4GHz clock speed and 4MB of L2 Cache.Continue Here>>
Assembling a wicked gaming machine can be a
challenging task, but realistically the most important device is the
videocard. At first glance, the Asus EN7900GT
TOP/2DHT/256M/A looks like a normal GeForce 7900GT... closer
inspection shows that it is a highly tuned videocard that is faster than
the average stock 7900GT. The 256MB Asus EN7900GT TOP/2DHT/256M/A
videocard is compatible only with PCI Express
x16 slots so that means AGP users needs to get their fix elsewhere.
The game comes with a large software bundle which includes a full copy of
King Kong, two DVI to analog converters, a component
output cable and a six pin molex power
connector should your power supply not natively support the new generation
of high powered videocards. Continue Here>>
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PCstats Weekly Tech Tips: Tweaking the DNS |
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One very annoying feature of the WindowsXP operating system is that it automatically caches failed DNS lookups. It's not a problem when addresses are truly wrong, for instance when you type an incorrect URL, but it can get irritating when the system caches failed DNS lookups for legitimate sites (like if you're having ISP problems). Luckily the fix is easy...
Load up a command prompt (Start -> Run then type "cmd" and press OK), type "ipconfig /flushdns" and press the "Enter" key. After that's done close the command prompt by typing "exit" and press enter. Now open up the registry editor (Start -> Run then type "regedit" and press OK) and follow this path. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Services -> Dnscache -> Parameters. In the right hand window create these three DWORD values ("NegativeCacheTime", "NetFailureCacheTime" and "NegativeSOACacheTime") and give them all a value of 0.
From now on your machine will not cache failed DNS lookups anymore, it might take a bit longer for your system to resolve bad websites addresses but at least it won't return false negatives. ;-)
Last issue's Server 2003 and Domain Controller Troubles tip was a bit garbled, the three command lines should have been set as follows:
REG DELETE HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\IPSec\Policy\Local /F
REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IPSEC /V Start /T
REG_DWORD /F /D 1
regsvr32 -s polstore.dll
Let PCSTATS know what you think about this Tech Tip, and be sure to stop by PCSTATS Forums and post your comments or questions. |
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Circulation: 176,908
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