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Zotac GeForce GTX280 AMP!

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The Geforce 9 had really short stay and NVIDIA has released the GTX 280, around the same time that ATI launched there first card. Zotac was the first to send us their over-clocked version of the GTX 280 that they proudly call the GTX 280 AMP! These new cards are crossing uncharted territories. the Zotac Gtx 280 AMP! runs at a core speed of 700 MHz instead of the default 602 MHz. Most numbers on the new card have been doubled from what was on the last 9800GTX. The memory bandwidth has been increased to 512 bit and there is 1 GB of memory on the card. An 8pin abd 6-pin power connector is required to power the GTX 280 AMP!
Zotac GeForce GTX280 AMPIt’s just not all about the numbers. The GTX 280 absolutely destroys all previous records held by single cards. To give you an idea. the Zotac GTX 280 AMP! is about 50 to 75 per cent faster than the colossal 8800 Ultra in most benchmarks. For example, in one of our tests, the 8800 Ultra scores around 100 fps in prey at 1920 x 1200 with maximum detail and 4x anti-aliasing and 8x antistrophic filtering turned on. The GTX 280 AMP! beat it with a score of 173 fps. Even Unreal Tournament 3 with all the settings turned up gave scores of 119 fps on the Shangrila map at 1920 x 1200. 3DMark 2005 and 2006 scores increased as well, but not to the extent of the real world gaming benchmarks.

The card, in comparison, runs cooler then the 8800 GTXs, more so when compared to the 8800 Ultras. The cooling solution on the Zotac card is stock NVIDIA Design. The card is a little less compact then the 9800GX2. It is lighter, but consumes over 300 W when on load. In idle, it drops to as little or lower then a 9800GTX card. A power supply of at least 600 W is highly recommended to any future owners.
The Zotac GTX 280 AMP! is a great card and we’re sure some of the non over-clocked versions are rally good as well. It would be terribly wrong to say that the GTX280 is not a good card. There’s significant improvement in performance. There’s one major problem right now , other then the high power demands-the price. The current price for the Zotac GTX280 AMP! is a whopping $1200, which makes it way over the top in terms of pricing.
As things stand today, the prices are exorbitant and with ATI releasing cards of their own priced at much lower prices offering better value for money, it’s only a matter of time before the prices for the GTX 280 drop. GTX260s as expected to hit the markets soon, so a little caution at the moment is recommended to look out for some extreme price drops.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Microsoft confesses to posting a flawed update

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Microsoft Corp. re-released one of its Aug. 11 security updates yesterday, explaining that it had posted an incomplete version to its own download center last week.

The admission was the third time in the past two months that Microsoft has had to re-issue a security-related update.

Users who manually downloaded MS08-051 since Aug. 12 to patch Office 2003 should obtain the second version as soon as possible, Microsoft said. People who obtained the update via Windows Update or through their company’s Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server, or who updated other versions of Office, do not need to reinstall MS08-051.

That update patched three vulnerabilities in PowerPoint, the presentation maker included with Microsoft Office, including one that Microsoft labeled “critical,” its highest ranking. MS08-051 was one of 11 security bulletins released last week that patched 26 bugs, the most Microsoft has tackled in a single month for the last year and a half.

According to the revised bulletin published Thursday, the PowerPoint 2003 patches originally posted to Microsoft’s Download Center were the wrong versions. “While these versions did protect against the vulnerabilities discussed in the bulletin, they lacked other important security and reliability updates,” Microsoft said in the revamped MS08-051.

The company said it had posted the correct versions to Windows Update and Office Update from the start. “This only affected the packages on the Microsoft Download Center; Microsoft Update and Office Update contained and were distributing the correct versions of the binaries and did not need to be updated.”

Anyone who updated PowerPoint in Office 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Office 2003 SP3 by grabbing the update from elsewhere ; in other words, directly from Microsoft’s download site — must reinstall the second edition of the patches, either by downloading the revised bits from Download Center or through Windows Update/Office Update.

Microsoft gave a third option to users unable to immediately replace the flawed patches. “If you choose to not reinstall the update, you must manually set the registry key in order to block PowerPoint file types as a workaround,” Microsoft advised.

Second tries of security updates have become commonplace of late for the Redmond, Wash., software maker. In June, Microsoft, citing unspecified “human issues,” was forced to re-release a fix for a flaw in Windows’ implementation of Bluetooth, the short-range wireless protocol. And just last week, it re-issued a July patch for a bug that had prevented some network administrators from using the WSUS patch-management tool to deploy security updates.

Microsoft was unavailable for comment.

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Popularity: 33% [?]

Lenovo ThinkCenter A61e Review

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Lenovo ThinkCenter A61E

Go Green! Seems to be the mantra this days and every manufacture is doling out power efficient products. Lenevo’s A61e is based on AMD’s DTS form factor-the fast of it’s kind, consisting on their power optimized processor, chipset and graphics.
The A series of desktops from Lenovo are oriented towards business and hence don’t expect this PC to churn out big numbers-it is not meant too. The A61e is designed to consume less space-an important aspect for most businesses. We found the dimensions very compact for full fledged pc-great for Media center PCs. Despite the diminutive form factor the pc does not get hot-thanks to good ventilation and low power components.
The configuration offers a decent balance between performance and power consumption. AMDs Athlon 64 X2 BE-2350 (power optimized) processor along with ATIs X1200 onboard graphics power the PCs critical system. The motherboard is custom built, and hence we could not trace its manufacturer. Other goodies include 1 GB of memory, 160 GB hard drive, DVD writer and Gigabit Ethernet. The PC does not run directly off the mains, rather it requires the provided power adapter similar to a laptop. The tight fit of components means, upgradeability is limited.However,the system admin will appreciate the tool-case,which opens by sliding a signal latch.
Along with the A61e, Lenovo has bundled the familiar black keyboard and optical mouse. The A61e can be ordered without any display. However,our test unit had their 20-inch LCD monitor.During our tests the LCD fared well and delivered good tonal accuracy. The LCD is fit for any office related work, i.e. word processing, spreadsheets, browsing etc.
When we upgraded the memory to 2GB the PC shifted its gear and delivered reasonable results. With all the eye candy on,vista requires at least 2GB for other applications to work.With Windows XP, we had no problem with the stock configurations. The performance was satisfying.We tried Ubuntu 7.10.The PC did boot,but with minor glitches such as wrong screen resolution,no sound, etc, which needed some fixing.
The A61e without the monitor is sweetly priced at $395.

Specifications:
AMD Athlon 64×2, 1 GB DDRII, 160 GB HDD, DVD-RW, X1200 onboard graphics, Keyboard, optical mouse, Gigabit Ethernet and PC DOS.

Popularity: 17% [?]